JX 

1949 
D9 

1876 


L^  ^v 

•J 

AN    INQUIRY 

INTO 

THE  ACCORDANCY  OF  WAR 

WITH 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 

AND 

AN    EXAMINATION  OF  T^Ifi   PHILOSOPHICAL  REASONING   BY 
WHICH  IT  IS  DEFENDED. 


WITH 


OBSERVATIONS      ON     SOME    OF     THE    CAUSES    OF    WAR      AND    ON     SOMB 
OF    ITS    EFFECTS. 


BY    JONATHAN    DYMOND. 


Contempt,  prior  to  examination,  however  comfortable  to  the  mind  which  entertains 
it,  or  however  natural  to  grea,  pans,  is  extremely  dangerous  ;  and  more  apt  than 
almost  any  other  disposition,  to  produce  erroneous  judgments  both  of  persons  and 
opinions.  PALEY. 


NEW- YORK  : 

STEREOTYPED    FOR    AND     PRINTED     BY    ORDER    OP    THE    TRUSTEED 
OF    THE    RESIDUARY    ESTATE    OF    LINDLEY    MURRAY. 

NEW  YORK: 
WILLIAM   WOOD   &    CO.,    27    GREAT  JONES    ST. 

1876. 


JOHN  F.  TROW  &  SON. 

PRINTERS    AND     STEKEOTYPERS, 

205-213  Kast  iith  St., 

NEW   YORK. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


LIUDLEY  MURRAY,  the  Grammarian,  and  Author  of  several  excellent  srnooi 
and  reading  books,  in  his  last  will,  bequeathed  certain  funds  to  Trustees  *n 
America,  his  native  country,  for  several  benevolent  objects,  including  the  gra- 
tuitous distribution  of  "  books  calculated  to  promote  piety  and  virtue,  and  the 
truth  of  Christianity." 

The  Trustees  have  heretofore  had  "  The  Power  of  Religion  on  the  Mind,  in 
Retirement,  Affliction,  and  at  the  Approach  of  Death," — and  suso,  -  biographical 
Sketches  and  Interesting  Anecdotes  of  Persons  of  Color,"  stereotyped,  and  several 
thousand  copies  printed  and  distributed ;  and  they  now  present  to  the  public  the 
following  work,  with  a  belief  that  it  is  well  calculated  to  promote  the  views  desig- 
nated by  L  Murray. 
1847. 


CONTENTS. 


Preface  ........7 

I.— CAUSES  OP  WAR. 

Original  causes — Present  multiplicity         .....  9 

Want  of  inquiry — This  want  not  manifested  on  parallel  subjects     •  10 

National  irritability           -             -             -             -             -             -             •  12 

"  Balance  of  poioer"        -            -             -            -            -            -            •  15 

Pecuniary  interest — Employment  for  the  higher  ranks  of  society  16 

Ambition — Private  purposes  of  state  policy                          -            -  19 
Military  glory       -----...20 

Foundation  of  military  glory — Skill — Bravery— Patriot  ism— Patriot- 
ism not  a  motive  to  the  soldier. 

Books — Historians — Poets            ......  27 

Writor.«  v.ho  promote  war  sometimes  assert  its  unlawfulness. 

IL— AN  INQUIRY,  &c. 
Palpable  ferocity  of  war  ......         33 

Reasonableness  of  'tie  inquiry        ......         34 

Revealed  will  of  God  the  sole  standard  of  decision  -  35 

Declarations  of  great  men  that  Christianity  prohibits  war  -  .36 

Christianity  .-.--...37 

General  character  of  Christianity  -  -  -  -         39 

Precepts  and  declarations  of  Jesus  Christ  -  -  -  -39 

Arguments  that  the  precepts  are  figurative  only      -  -  .41 

Precepts  and  declarations  of  the  apostles  -  .  .  46 

Objections  to  the  advocate  of  peace  from  passages  of  the  Christian  Scriptures     48 
Prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  respecting  an  era  of  peace         -  54 

Early  Christians — Their  belief — Their  practice — Early  Christian  writers         56 
Mosaic  institutions  -  -  -  -  -  -  -61 

Example  of  men  of  piety  ......         64 

Objections  to  the  advocate  of  peace  from  the  distinction  between  the  duties 

of  private  and  public  life     -  ...         65 

Mode  of  proving  the  rectitude  of  this  distinction  from  the  absence 

of  a  common  arbitrator  amongst  nations  -  .  66 

Mode  of  proving  it  on  the  principles  of  expediency  -  67 

Examination  of  the  principles  of  expediency  as  applied  to  war     -         68 

of  the  mode  of  its  application       -  -  -  •         69 

Universality  of  Christian  obligation          -  -  •  •  71 


6 

Page 

Dr.  Paley's  "  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy" — Chapter  "  on  War.  ' 

Mode  of  discusssing  the  question  of  its  lawfulness  -        72 

This  mode  inconsistent  with  the  professed  principles  of  the  Moral 

Pilosophy — with  the  usual  practice  of  the  author         -  73 

Inapplicability  of  the  principles  proposed  hy  the  Moral  Philosophy 

to  the  purposes  of  life  -  -  .75 

Dr.  Paley's  "  Evidences  of  Christianity''  -         76 

Inconsistency  of  its  statements  with  the  principles  of  the  Moral 

Philosophy       -  78 

Argument  in  favour  of  war  from  the  excess  of  male  births  -         7S 

from  the   lawfulness  of  coercion  on  the  part  of  the  civil  magistrate         79 

Right  of  self-defence — Mode  of  maintaining  the  right  from  the  instincts  of 

nature        ........82 

Attack  of  an  assassin — Principles  on  which  killing  an  assassin 

is  defended      -  ....        84 

Consequences  of  these  principles  -  -        87 

Unconditional  reliance  upon  Providence  on  the  subject  of  defence  -        89 

Safety  of  this  reliance — Evidence  by  experience  in  private  life — 

by  natural  experience  -  ...         90 

General  observations          -  ...  -         95 

III.— EFFECTS  OF  WAR. 

Social  consequences          -  -  -  -  .  .  -101 

Political  consequences       -  -  -  •  .  .  -102 

Opinions  of  Dr.  Johnson  .....      104 

Moral  consequences          -  -  ----105 

i 

UPON   THE    MILITARY   CHARACTER. 

Familiarity  with  human  destruction — with  plunder  -  -       106 

Incapacity  for  regular  pursuits — "  half- pay"  -  107 
Implicit  submission  to  superiors. 

Its  effects  on  the  independence  of  the  mind  -  .  .109 

on  the  moral  character    -             -  -  .  .110 

Resignation  of  moral  agency               .  .  .  -Ill 

Military  power  despotic           -            -  .  .  -112 

UPON    THE    COMMUNITY. 

Peculiar  contagiousness  of  military  depravity      -            .            •  1 1 5 
Animosity  of  party — Spirit  of  resentment             .                          -117 

Privateering — Its  peculiar  atrocity                                                    .             .  ]]$ 

Mercenaries — Loan  of  armies        -             -            .             -            .             -  119 

Prayers  for  the  success  of  war           -            -             .             .         .            -  120 
The  duly  of  a  subject  who  believes  that   all  war  is   incompatible    with 

Christianity           •----..  122 

Conclusion           ........  134 


PREFACE. 


THE  object  of  the  following  pages  is,  to  give  a  view  of  the  principal 
aiguments  which  maintain  the  indefensibility  and  impolicy  of  war, 
and  to  examine  the  reasoning  which  is  advanced  in  its  favour. 

The  author  has  not  found, -either  in  those  works  which  treat  exclu- 
sively of  war,  or  in  those  which  refer  to  it  as  part  of  a  general  system, 
any  examination  of  the  question  that  embraced  it  in  all  its  bearings. 
In  these  pages,  therefore,  he  has  attempted,  not  only  to  inquire  into  its 
accordancy  with  Christian  principles,  and  to  enforce  the  obligation  of 
these  principles,  but  to  discuss  those  objections  to  the  advocate  of 
peace  which  are  advanced  by  philosophy,  and  to  examine  into  the 
authority  of  those  which  are  enforced  by  the  power  of  habit,  and  by 
popular  opinion. 

Perhaps  no  other  apology  is  necessary  for  the  intrusion  of  this  essay 
upon  the  public,  than  that  its  subject  is,  in  a  very  high  degree,  impor- 
tant. Upon  such  a  subject  as  the  slaughter  of  mankind,  if  there  be  a 
doubt,  however  indeterminate,  whether  Christianity  does  not  prohibit 
i: — if  there  be  a  possibility,  however  remote,  that  the  happiness  and 
security  of  a  nation  can  be  maintained  without  it,  an  examination  of 
sucn  possibility  or  doubt,  may  reasonably  obtain  our  attention. — The 
advocate  of  peace  is,  however,  not  obliged  to  avail  himself  of  such  con- 
siderations :  at  least,  if  the  author  had  not  believed  that  much  more 
than  doubt  and  possibility  can  be  advanced  in  support  of  his  opinions, 
this  inquiry  .vould  not  have  been  offered  to  the  public. 

He  is  far  from  amusing  himself  with  the  expectation  of  a  general 
assent  to  the  truth  of  his  conclusions.  Some  will  probably  dispute  the 
rectitude  of  the  principles  of  decision,  and  some  will  dissent  from  the 
legitimacy  of  their  application.  Nevertheless,  he  believes  that  the 
number  of  those  whose  opinions  will  accord  with  his  own  is  increasing, 
and  will  yet  much  more  increase  ;  and  this  belief  is  sufficiently  confi- 
dent to  induce  him  to  publish  an  essay  which  will  probably  be  the 
subject  of  contempt  to  some  men,  and  of  ridicule  to  others.  But  ridi- 
cule and  contempt  are  not  potent  reasoners. 

"  Christianity  can  only  operate  as  an  alterative.  By  the  mild  diffu- 
sion of  its  light  aric  influence,  the  minds  of  men  are  insensibly  prepared 
to  perceive  and  correct  the  enormities,  which  folly,  or  wickedness,  or 
accident  have  introduced  into  their  public  establishments."*  It  is  in 
the  hope  of  contributing,  in  a  degree  however  unimportant  or  remote, 
to  the  diffusion  of  this  light  and  influence,  that  the  following  pages 
have  been  written. 

For  the  principles  of  this  little  volume,  or  for  its  conclusions,  no  one 
is  responsible  but  the  writer :  they  are  unconnected  with  any  society, 

*  Paley's  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy. 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

benevolent  or  religious.  He  has  not  written  it  for  a  present  occasion, 
or  with  any  view  to  the  present  political  state  of  Europe.  A  question 
like  this  does  not  concern  itself  with  the  quarrels  of  the  day. 

It  will  perhaps  be  thought  by  some  readers,  that  there  is  contained, 
in  the  following  pages,  greater  severity  of  animadversion  than  becomes 
an  advocate  of  peace.  But,  "  let  it  be  remembered,  thar  to  besto\v 
good  names  on  bad  things,  is  to  give  them  a  passport  in  the  world 
under  a  delusive  disguise."*  The  writer  believes  that  wars  are  often 
supported,  because  the  system  itself,  and  the  actions  of  its  agents,  are 
veiled  in  glittering  fictions.  He  has  therefore  attempted  to  exhibit  the 
nature  of  these  fictions  and  of  that  which  they  conceal ;  and  to  state, 
freely  and  honestly,  both  what  they  are  not,  and  what  they  are.  Ir 
this  attempt  it  has  been  difficult — perhaps  it  has  not  been  possible — tc 
avoid  some  appearance  of  severity :  but  he  would  beg  the  reader 
always  to  bear  in  his  recollection,  that  if  he  speaks  with  censure  of  any 
class  of  men,  he  speaks  of  them  only  as  a  class.  He  is  far  from  giving 
to  such  censure  an  individual  application :  Such  an  application  would 
be  an  outrage  of  all  candour  and  all  justice.  If  again  he  speaks  of  war 
as  criminal,  he  does  not  attach  guilt,  necessarily,  to  the  profession  of 
arms.  He  can  suppose  that  many  who  engage  in  the  dreadful  work  of 
human  destruction,  may  do  it  without  a  consciousness  of  impropriety, 
or  with  a  belief  of  its  virtue.  But  truth  itself  is  unalterable  :  whatever 
be  our  conduct,  and  whatever  our  opinions,  and  whether  we  perceive 
its  principles  or  not,  those  principles  are  immutable  ;  and  the  illustra 
tion  of  truth,  so  far  as  he  has  the  power  of  discovering  it,  is  the  object 
of  the  Inquiry  which  he  now  offers  to  the  public. 

*  Knot's  Essays,  No  34. 


•.H-A.^ 
I. 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  CAUSES  OP  WAR. 


Felix,  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas. — Virg. 


IN  the  attempt  to  form  an  accurate  estimate  of  the  moral 
character  of  human  actions  and  opinions,  it  is  often  of  importance 
to  inquire  how  they  have  been  produced.  There  is  always  great 
reason  to  doubt  the  rectitude  of  that,  of  which  the  causes  and 
motives  are  impure  ;  and  if,  therefore,  it  should  appear  from  the 
observations  which  follow,  that  some  of  the  motives  to  war,  and 
of  its  causes,  are  inconsistent  with  reason  or  with  virtue,  I  would 
invite  the  reader  to  pursue  the  inquiry  that  succeeds  them,  with 
suspicion,  at  least,  of  the  rectitude  of  our  ordinary  opinions. 

There  are  some  customs  which  have  obtained  so  generally  and 
so  long,  that  what  was  originally  an  effect  becomes  a  cause, 
and  what  was  a  cause  becomes  an  effect,  until,  by  the  reciprocal 
influence  of  each,  the  custom  is  continued  by  circumstances  so 
multiplied  and  involved,  that  it  is  difficult  to  detect  them  in  all 
their  ramifications,  or  to  determine  those  to  which  it  is  principal- 
ly to  be  referred. 

What  were  once  the  occasions  of  wars  may  be  easily  supposed. 
Robbery,  or  the  repulsion  of  robbers,  was  probably  the  only 
motive  to  hostility,  until  robbery  became  refined  into  ambition, 
and  it  was  sufficient  to  produce  a  w*ar  that  a  chief  was  not  content 
with  the  territory  of  his  fathers.  But  by  the  gradually  increas- 
ing complication  of  society  from  age  to  age,  and  by  the  multipli- 
cation of  remote  interests  and  obscure  rights,  the  motives  to  war 
have  become  so  numerous  and  so  technical,  that  ordinary  obser- 

2 


10 

vation  often  fails  to  perceive  what  they  are.  They  are  sometimes 
known  only  to  a  cabinet,  which  is  influenced  in  its  decision  by 
reasonings  of  which  a  nation  knows  little,  or  by  feelings  of  which 
it  knows  nothing ;  so  that  of  those  who  personally  engage  in 
hostilities,  there  is.  perhaps,  not  often  one  in  ten  who  can  distinct- 
ly tell  why  he  is  fighting. 

This  refinement  in  the  motives  of  war,  is  no  trifling  evidence 
that  they  are  insufficient  or  bad.  When  it  is  considered  how 
tremendous  a  battle  is,  how  many  it  hurries  in  a  moment  from 
the  world,  how  much  wretchedness  and  how  much  guilt  it  pro- 
duces, it  would  surely  appear  that  nothing  but  obvious  necessity 
should  induce  us  to  resort  to  it.  But  when,  instead  of  a  battle, 
we  have  a  wrar  with  many  battles,  and  of  course  with  multiplied 
suffering  and  accumulated  guilt,  the  motives  to  so  dreadful  a 
measure  ought  to  be  such  as  to  force  themselves  upon  involuntary 
observation,  and  to  be  written,  as  it  were,  in  the  skies.  If,  then, 
a  large  proportion  of  a  people  are  often  without  any  distinct  per- 
ception of  the  reasons  why  they  are  slaughtering  mankind,  it 
implies,  I  think,  prima  facie  evidence  against  the  adequacy  or  the 
justice  of  the  motive*?  to  slaughter. 

It  would  not.  perhaps,  be  affectation  to  say,  that  of  the  reasons 
why  we  so  readily  engage  in  war,  one  of  the  principal  is,  that  we 
do  not  inquire  into  the  subject.  We  have  been  accustomed,  from 
earliest  life,  to  a  familiarity  with  all  its"  pomp  and  circumstance;" 
soldiers  have  passed  us  at  every  step,  and  battles  and  victories 
have  been  the  topic  of  every  one  around  us.  War,  therefore, 
becomes  familiarized  to  all  our  thoughts,  and  interwoven  with  all 
our  associations.  We  have  never  inquired  whether  these  things 
should  be :  the  question  does  not  even  suggest  itself.  We  acqui- 
esce in  it,  as  we  acquiecse  in  the  rising  of  the  sun,  without  any 
other  idea  than  that  it  is  a  part  of  the  ordinary  process  of  the 
world.  And  how  are  we  to  feel  disapprobation  of  a  system  that 
we  do  not  examine,  and  of  the  nature  of  which  we  do  not  think  1 
Want  of  inquiry  has  been  the  means  by  which  long  continued 
practices,  whatever  has  been  their  enormity,  have  obtained  the 
general  concurrence  of  the  world,  and  by  which  they  have  con- 
tinned  to  pollute  or  degrade  it,  long  after  the  few  who  inquire 
into  their  nature  have  discovered  them  to  be  bad.  It  was  by 
these  means  that  the  slave-trade  was  so  long  tolerated  by  this 


11 

land  of  humanity.  Men  did  not  think  of  its  iniquity.  We  were 
induced  to  think,  and  we  soon  abhorred  and  then  abolished  it.  In 
the  present  moral  state  of  the  -world,  therefore,  I  believe  it  is 
the  business  of  him  who  would  perceive  pure  morality,  to  question 
the  purity  of  that  which  now  obtains. 

*'  The  vices  of  another  age,"  says  Robertson,  "  astonish  and 
shock  us  ;  the  vices  of  oar  own  become  familiar,  and  excite  little 
horror.'' — "The  influence  of  any  national  custom,  both  on  the 
Understanding,  on  the  heart,  and  how  far  it  may  go  towards  per- 
verting or  extinguishing  moral  principles  of  the  greatest  import- 
ance, is  remarkable.  They  who  [in  156(5]  had  leisure  to  reflect 
and  to  judge,  appear  to  be  no  more  shocked  at  the  crime  of  assas- 
sination, than  the  persons  who  committed  it  in  the  heat  and 
impetuosity  of  passion.''*  Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  have 
added  something  to  our  morality.  We  have  learnt,  at  least,  to 
abhor  assassination ;  and  I  am  not  afraid  to  hope  that  the  time 
will  arrive  when  historians  shall  think  of  Avar  what  Robertson 
thinks  of  murder,  and  shall  endeavor  like  him,  to  account  for  the 
ferocity  and  moral  blindness  of  their  forefathers.  For  I  do  not 
think  the  influence  of  habit  in  the  perversion  or  extinction  of 
our  moral  principles,  is  in  any  other  thing  so  conspicuous  or  de- 
plorable, as  in  the  subject  before  us.  They  who  are  shocked  at 
a  single  murder  in  the  highway,  hear  with  indifference  of  the 
murder  of  a  thousand  on  the  field.  They  whom  the  idea  of  a 
single  corpse  would  thrill  with  terror,  contemplate  that  of  heaps 
of  human  carcasses,  mangled  by  human  hands,  with  frigid  indif- 
ference. If  a  murder  is  committed,  the  narrative  is  given  in  the 
public  newspaper,  with  many  expressions  of  commiseration,  with 
many  adjectives  of  horror,  and  many  hopes  that  the  perpetrator 
will  be  detected.  In  the  next  paragraph  the  editor,  perhaps,  tells 
us  that  he  has  hurried  a  second  edition  to  the  press,  in  order  that 
he  may  be  the  first  to  glad  the  public  with  the  intelligence,  that 
in  an  engagement  which  has  just  taken  place,  eight  hundred  and 
fifty  of  the  enemy  were  killed.  By  war,  the  natural  impulses  of  the 
heart  seem  to  be  suspended,  as  if  a  fiend  of  blood  were  privileged 
to  exercise  a  spell  upon  our  sensibilities,  whenever  we  contem- 
plated his  ravages.  Amongst  all  the  shocking  and  all  the  terrible 

*  History  of  Scotland. 


12 

scenes  the  world  exhibits,  the  slaughters  of  war  stand  pre« 
eminent ;  yet  these  are  the  scenes  of  which  the  compassionate 
and  the  ferocious,  the  good  and  the  bad,  alike  talk  with  com- 
placency or  exultation. 

England  is  a  land  of  benevolence,  and  to  human  misery  she  is 
of  ail  nations,  the  most  prompt  in  the  extension  of  relief.  The 
immolations  of  the  Hindoos  fill  us  with  compassion  or  horror,  and 
we  are  zealously  laboring  to  prevent  them.  The  sacrifices  of  life 
by  our  own  criminal  executions  are  the  subject  of  our  anxious 
commiseration,  and  we  are  strenuously  endeavoring  to  diminish 
their  number.  We  feel  that  the  life  of  a  Hindoo  or  a  malefactor 
is  a  serious  thing,  and  that  nothing  but  imperious  necessity  should 
induce  us  to  destroy  the  one,  or  to  permit  the  destruction  of  the 
other.  Yet  what  are  these  sacrifices  of  life  in  comparison  with 
the  sacrifices  of  war  ?  In  the  late  campaign  in  Russia,  there  fell, 
during  one  hundred  and  seventy-three  days  in  succession,  an 
average  of  two  thousand  nine  hundred  men  per  day.  More  than 
five  hundred  thousand  human  beings  in  less  than  six  months ! 
And  most  of  these  victims  expired  with  peculiar  intensity  of  suf 
fering.  "  Thou  that  teachest  another,  teachest  thou  not  thyself  ?*' 
We  are  carrying  our  benevolence  to  the  Indies,  but  what  become? 
of  it  in  Russia  or  at  Leipsic  1  We  are  laboring  to  save  a  few 
lives  from  the  gallows,  but  where  is  our  solicitude  to  save  them 
on  the  field  ?  Life  is  life,  wheresoever  it  be  sacrificed,  and  has 
every  where  equal  claims  to  our  regard.  I  am  not  now  inquiring 
whether  war  is  right,  but  whether  we  do  not  regard  its  calamities 
with  an  indifference  with  which  we  regard  no  others,  and  wheth- 
er that  indifference  does  not  make  us  acquiesce  in  evils  and  in 
miseries  which  we  should  otherwise  prevent  or  condemn. 

Amongst  the  immediate  causes  of  the  frequency  of  war,  there 
is  one  which  is,  indisputably,  irreconcilable  in  its  nature  with  the 
principles  of  our  religion.  I  speak  of  the  critical  sense  of  national 
pride,  and  consequent  aptitude  of  offence,  and  violence  of  resent- 
ment. National  irritability  is  at  once  a  cause  of  war,  and  an 
effect.  It  disposes  us  to  resent  injuries  with  bloodshed  and 
destruction  ;  and  a  war,  when  it  is  begun,  inflames  and  perpetu- 
ates the  passions  that  produced  it.  Those  who  wish  a  war, 
endeavour  to  rouse  the  spirit  of  a  people  by  stimulating  their 
passions.  They  talk  of  the  insults,  or  the  encroachments,  or  the 


13 

contempts  of  the  destined  enemy,  with  every  artifice  of  aggrava 
tion  ;  they  tell  us  of  foreigners  who  want  to  trample  upon  out 
rights,  of  rivals  who  ridicule  our  power,  of  foes  who  will  crush, 
and  of  tyrants  who  will  enslave  us.  These  men  pursue  their 
object,  certainly,  by  efficacious  means ;  they  desire  a  war,  and 
therefore  irritate  our  passions,  knowing  that  when  men  are  angry 
they  are  easily  persuaded  to  fight. 

In  this  state  of  irritability,  a  nation  is  continually  alive  to 
occasions  of  offence ;  and  when  we  seek  for  offences,  we  readily 
find  them.  A  jealous  sensibility  sees  insults  and  injuries  \vhere 
sober  eyes  see  nothing,  and  nations  thus  surround  themselves  with 
a  sort  of  artificial  tentacula,  which  they  throw  wide  in  quest  of 
irritation,  and  by  which  they  are  stimulated  to  revenge,  by  every 
touch  of  accident  or  inadvertency. 

He  that  is  easily  offended  will  also  easily  offend.  The  man 
who  is  always  on  the  alert  to  discover  trespasses  on  his  honour  or 
his  rights,  never  fails  to  quarrel  with  his  neighbors.  Such  a  per- 
son may  be  dreaded  as  a  torpedo.  We  may  fear,  but  we  shall 
not  love  him ;  and  fear  without  love,  easily  lapses  into  enmity. 
There  are,  therefore,  many  feuds  and  litigations  in  the  life  of  such 
a  man,  that  would  never  have  disturbed  its  quiet,  if  he  had  not 
captiously  snarled  at  the  trespasses  of  accident,  and  savagely  re- 
taliated insignificant  injuries.  The  viper  that  we  chance  to 
molest,  we  suffer  to  live  if  he  continue  to  be  quiet ;  but  if  he 
r*  ise  himself  in  menaces  of  destruction,  we  knock  him  on  the 
hoad.  v 

it  is  with  nations  as  with  men.  If,  on  every  offence  we  fly  to 
arms,  and  raise  the  cry  of  blood,  we  shall  of  necessity,  provoke 
exasperation ;  and  if  we  exasperate  a  people  as  petulant  and 
bloody  as  ourselves,  we  may  probably  continue  to  butcher  one 
another,  until  we  cease  only  from  emptiness  of  exchequers,  or 
weariness  of  slaughter.  To  threaten  war,  is  therefore  often 
equivalent  to  beginning  it.  In  the  present  state  of  men's  princi- 
ples, it  is  not  probable  that  one  nation  will  observe  another 
levying  men,  and  building  ships,  and  founding  cannon,  without 
providing  men  and  ships  and  cannon  themselves ;  and  when  both 
are  thus  threatening  and  defying,  what  is  the  hope  that  there  will 
not  be  a  war  ? 

It  will  scarcely  be  disputed  that  we  should  not  kill  one  another 


14 

unless  we  cannot  help  it.  Since  war  is  an  enormous  evil,  sonic 
sacrifices  are  expedient  for  the  sake  of  peace  ;  and  if  we  consult- 
ed our  understandings  more  and  our  passions  less,  we  should 
soberly  balance  the  probabilities  of  mischief,  and  inquire  whether 
it  be  not  better  to  endure  some  evils  that  we  can  estimate,  than 
to  engage  in  a  conflict  of  which  we  can  neither  calculate  the 
mischief,  nor  foresee  the  event ;  which  may  probably  conduct  us 
from  slaughter  to  disgrace,  and  which  at  last  is  determined,  not 
by  justice,  but  by  power.  Pride  may  declaim  against  these 
sentiments;  but  my  business  is  not  with  pride,  but  with  reason  ; 
and  I  think  reason  determines  that  it  would  be  more  wise,  and 
religion  that  it  would  be  less  wicked,  to  diminish  our  punctilious- 
ness and  irritability.  If  nations  fought  only  when  they  could  not 
be  at  peace,  there  would  be  very  little  fighting  in  the  world. 
The  wars  that  are  waged  for  "  insults  to  flags,"  and  an  endless 
train  of  similar  motives,  are  perhaps  generally  attributable  to  the 
irritability  of  our  pride.  We  are  at  no  pains  to  appear  pacific 
towards  the  offender ;  our  remonstrance  is  a  threat ;  and  the 
nation,  which  would  give  satisfaction  to  an  inquiry,  will  give  no 
other  answer  to  a  menace  than  a  menace  in  return.  At  length 
we  begin  to  fight,  not  because  we  are  aggrieved,  but  because  we 
are  angry. 

The  object  of  the  haughtiness  and  petulance  which  one  nation 
uses  towards  another,  is  of  course  to  produce  some  benefit ;  to 
awe  into  compliance  with  its  demands,  or  into  forbearance  fr«>*n 
aggression.  Now  it  ought  to  be  distinctly  shown,  that  petulant 
and  haughtiness  are  more  efficacious  than  calmness  and  mode  u,- 
tion  ;  that  an  address  to  the  passions  of  a  probable  enemy  is  \\n\rv 
likely  to  avert  mischief  from  ourselves,  than  an  address  to  their 
reason  and  their  virtue.  Nations  are  composed  of  men,  and  of 
men  with  human  feelings.  Whether  with  individuals  or  with 
communities,  "  a  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath."  There  is, 
indeed,  something  in  the  calmness  of  reason — in  an  endeavour  to 
convince  rather  than  to  intimidate — in  an  honest  solicitude  for 
friendliness  and  peace,  which  obtains,  which  commands,  which 
extorts  forbearance  and  esteem.  This  is  the  privilege  of  rectitude 
and  truth.  It  is  an  inherent  quality  of  their  nature  ;  an  evidence 
of  their  identity  with  perfect  wisdom.  I  believe,  therefore,  that 
even  as  it  concerns  our  interests,  moderation  and  forbearance 


16 

would  be  the  most  politic.  And  let  not  our  duties  be  forgotten  • 
for  forbearance  and  moderation  are  duties,  absolutely  and  indis- 
pensably imposed  upon  us  by  Jesus  Christ. 

The  "  balance  of  potver"  is  a  phrase  with  which  we  are  made 
sufficiently  familiar,  as  one  of  the  great  objects  of  national  policy. 
that  must  be  attained  at  whatever  cost  of  treasure  or  of  blood. 
The  support  of  this  balance,  therefore,  is  one  of  the  great  pur- 
poses of  war,  and  one  of  the  great  occasions  of  its  frequency. 

It  is,  perhaps,  not  idle  to  remark,  that  a  balance  of  power 
amongst  nations,  is  inherently  subject  to  continual  interruption. 
If  all  the  countries  of  Europe  \vere  placed  on  an  equality  to-day, 
they  would  of  necessity  become  unequal  to-morrow.  This  is  the 
inevitable  tendency  of  human  affairs.  Thousands  of  circumstan- 
ces which  sagacity  cannot  foresee,  will  continually  operate  to 
destroy  an  equilibrium.  Of  men,  who  enter  the  world  with  the 
same  possessions  and  the  same  prospects,  one  becomes  rich  and 
the  other  poor  ;  one  harangues  in  the  senate,  and  another  labours 
in  a  minft  ;  one  sacrifices  his  life  to  intemperance,  and  another 
starves  in  a  garret.  How  accurately  soever  we  may  adjust  the 
strength  and  consequence  of  nations  to  each  other,  the  failure  of 
one  harvest,  the  ravages  of  one  tempest,  the  ambition  of  one  man, 
may  unequalize  them  in  a  moment.  It  is,  therefore,  not  a  trifling 
argument  against  this  anxious  endeavour  to  attain  an  equipoise  of 
power,  to  finJ  that  no  equipoise  can  be  maintained.  When  ne- 
gotiation has  followed  negotiation;  and  treaty  has  been  piled  upon 
treaty,  and  war  has  succeeded  to  war,  the  genius  of  a  Napoleon, 
or  the  fate  of  an  armada,  nullities  our  labors  without  the  possibil- 
ity of  prevention.  I  do  not  know  how  much  nations  have  gained 
by  a  balance  of  power,  but  it  is  worth  remembrance  that  some  of 
those  countries  which  have  been  most  solicitous  to  preserve  it, 
have  been  most  frequently  fighting  with  each  other.  How  many 
wars  lias  a  balance  of  power  prevented,  in  comparison  with  the 
number  that  have  been  waged  to  maintain  iff 

It  is,  indeed,  deplorable  enough  that  such  a  balance  is  to  be  de- 
sired ;  and  that  the  wickedness  and  violence  of  mankind  are  so 
great,  that  nothing  can  prevent  them  from  destroying  one  another 
but  an  equality  of  the  means  of  destruction.  In  such  a  state  of 
malignity  and  outrage,  it  need  not  be  disputed,  that,  if  it  could  be 
maintained,  an  equality  of  strength  is  sufficiently  desirable ;  as 


16 

tigers  may  be  restrained  from  ».r -i ring  one  another  by  mutual  fear 
•without  any  want  of  savageness.  It  should  be  remembered,  then, 
that  whatever  can  be  said  in  favour  of  a  balance  of  power,  can 
be  said  only  because  we  are  wicked ;  that  it  derives  all  its  value 
from  our  crimes ;  and  that  it  is  wanted  only  to  restrain  the  out- 
rage of  our  violence,  and  to  make  us  contented  to  growl  when  we 
should  otherwise  fight. 

Wars  are  often  promoted  from  considerations  of  interest,  as  well 
as  from  passion.  The  love  of  gain  adds  its  influence  to  our  other 
motives  to  support  them,  and  without  other  motives,  we  know  that 
this  love  is  sufficient  to  give  great  obliquity  to  the  moral  judgment, 
and  to  tempt  us  to  many  crimes.  During  a  war  of  ten  years, 
there  will  always  be  many  whose  income  depends  on  its  continu- 
ance ;  and  a  countless  host  of  commissaries,  and  purveyors,  and 
agents,  and  mechanics,  commend  a  war,  because  it  fills  their 
pockets.  These  men  have  commonly  but  one  question  respecting 
a  war,  and  that  is, — whether  they  get  by  it.  This  is  the  standard 
of  their  decision,  and  this  regulates  the  measure  of  their  support. 
If  money  is  in  prospect,  the  desolation  of  a  kingdom  is  of  little 
concern ;  destruction  and  slaughter  are  not  to  be  put  in  competi- 
tion with  a  hundred  a  year.  In  truth,  it  seems  to  be  the  system  of 
the  conductors  of  a  war,  to  give  to  the  sources  of  gain  every 
possible  ramification.  The  more  there  are  who  profit  by  it,  the 
more  numerous  will  be  its  supporters ;  and  thus  the  wishes  of  the 
.c*»bin°t  become  united  with  the  avarice  of  the  people,  and  both 
an-  abided  in  slaughter  and  devastation. 

A  >cu<x)rt  more  systematic  and  powerful  is,  however,  given 
to  war,  because  it  offers  to  the  higher  ranks  of  society,  a  pro- 
fession which  unites  gentility  with  profit,  and  which,  without  the 
vulgarity  of  trade,  maintains  or  enriches  them.  It  is  of  little  con- 
sequence to  inquire  whether  the  distinction  of  vulgarity  between 
the  toils  of  war  and  the  toils  of  commerce,  be  fictitious.  In  the 
abstract,  it  is  fictitious ;  but  of  this  species  of  reputation  public 
opinion  holds  the  arbitrium,  et  jus,  et  norma — and  public  opinion  is 
in  favour  of  war. 

The  army  and  the  navy  therefore  afford  to  the  middle  and 
higher  classes,  a  most  acceptable  profession.  The  profession  of 
arms  is  like  the  profession  of  law  or  physic — a  regular  source  of 
employment  and  profit.  Boys  are  educated  for  the  army,  as  they 


17 

are  educated  for  the  bar ;  and  parents  appear  to  have  no  other 
idea  than  that  war  is  part  of  the  business  of  the  world.  Of 
younger  sons,  whose  fathers  do  not  choose  to  support  them  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  heir,  the  army  and  the  navy  are  the  common  resource. 
They  would  not  know  what  to  do  without  them.  To  many  of 
these,  the  news  of  a  peace  becomes  a  calamity :  principle  is  not 
powerful  enough  to  cope  with  interest :  they  prefer  the  desolation 
of  the  world  to  the  loss  of  a  colonelcy.  It  is  in  this  manner  that 
much  of  the  rank,  the  influence,  and  the  wealth  of  a  country 
become  interested  in  the  promotion  of  wars  ;  and  when  a  custom 
is  promoted  by  wealth,  and  influence,  and  rank,  what  is  the 
wonder  that  it  should  be  continued  ? 

Yet  it  is  a  dreadful  consideration  that  the  destruction  of  our 
fellows  should  become  a  business  by  which  to  live ;  and  that  a 
man  can  find  no  other  occupation  of  gain,  than  that  of  butchering 
his  neighbours.  It  is  said  (if  my  memory  serves  me,  by  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh)  "  he  that  taketh  up  his  rest  to  live  by  this  pro- 
fession, shall  hardly  be  an  honest  man." — "  Where  there  is  no 
obligation  to  obey."  "  says  Lord  Clarendon,  "  it  is  a  wonderful  and 
an  unnatural  appetite,  that  disposes  men  to  be  soldiers,  that  they 
may  know  how  to  live  ;  and  what  reputation  soever  it  may  have 
in  politics,  it  can  have  none  in  religion,  to  say,  that  the  art  and 
conduct  of  a  soldier  is  not  infused  by  nature,  but  by  study, 
experience,  and  observation ;  and  therefore  that  men  are  to  learn 
it : — when,  in  truth,  this  common  argument  is  made  by  appetite  to 
excuse,  and  not  by  reason  to  support,  an  ill  custom."*  People  do 
not  often  become  soldiers  in  order  to  serve  their  country,  but  to 
serve  themselves.  An  income  is  commonly  the  motive  to  the 
great,  and  idleness  to  the  poor.  To  plead  the  love  of  our  country 
is  tHrefore  hypocrisy  ;  and  let  it  be  remembered  that  hypocrisy 
is  rtself  an  evidence,  and  an  acknowledgment,  that  the  motive 
which  it  would  disguise  is  bad. 

By  depending  upon  war  for  a  subsistence,  a  powerful  induce- 
ment is  given  to  desire  it ;  and  I  would  submit  it  to  the  conscien- 
tious part  of  the  profession,  that  he  who  desires  a  war  for  the  sake 
of  its  profits,  has  lost  something  of  his  virtue  :•  he  has,  at  least 
enlisted  one  of  the  most  influential  of  human  propensities  against 

*Lord  Clarendon's  Essays. 
3 


18 

it,  and  when  the  prospect  of  gratification  is  before  him — when  the 
question  of  war  is  to  be  decided — it  is  to  be  feared  that  he  will 
suffer  the  whispers  of  interest  to  prevail,  and  that  humanity,  and 
religion,  and  his  conscience  will  be  sacrificed  to  promote  it.  But 
whenever  we  shall  have  learnt  the  nature  of  pure  Christianity, 
and  have  imbibed  its  dispositions,  we  shall  not  be  willing  to 
avail  ourselves  of  such  a  horrible  source  of  profit ;  nor  to  con- 
tribute to  the  misery,  and  wickedness,  and  destruction  of  mankind, 
in  order  to  avoid  a  false  and  foolish  shame. 

It  is  frequently  in  the  power  of  individual  statesmen  to  involve 
a  people  in  a  war.  "  Their  restraints,"  says  Knox,  "  in  the  pursuit 
of  political  objects,  are  not  those  of  morality  and  religion,  but 
solely  reasons  of  state,  and  political  caution.  Plausible  wrords  are 
used,  but  they  are  used  to  hide  the  deformity  of  the  real  principles. 
Wherever  war  is  deemed  desirable  in  an  interested  view,  a 
specious  pretext  never  yet  remained  unfound  ;"* — and  "  when  they 
have  once  said  what  they  think  convenient,  how  untruly  soever, 
they  proceed  to  do  what  they  judge  will  be  profitable,  how 
unjustly  soever  ;  and  this,  men  very  absurdly  and  unreasonably 
would  have  called  reason  of  state,  to  the  discredit  of  all  solid 
reason,  and  all  rules  of  probity."f  Statesmen  have  two  standards 
of  morality — a  social  and  a  political  standard.  Political  morality 
embraces  all  crimes  ;  except,  indeed,  that  it  has  that  technical 
virtue  which  requires  that  he  who  may  kill  a  hundred  men  with 
bullets,  should  not  kill  one  with  arsenic.  And  from  this  double 
system  of  morals  it  happens,  that  statesmen  who  have  no  restraint 
to  political  enormities  but  political  expediency,  are  sufficiently 
amiable  in  private  life.  But  "  probity,"  says  Bishop  Watson,  "  is 
an  uniform  principle  ;  ^t  cannot  be  put  on  in  our  private  closet, 
and  put  off  in  the  council-chamber  or  the  senate  :"  and  I  fear  that 
he  who  is  wicked  as  a  statesman,  if  he  be  good  as  a  man,  has 
some  other  motive  to  goodness  than  its  love  ;  that  he  is  decent  in 
private  life,  because  it  is  not  expedient  that  he  should  be  flagitious. 
It  cannot  be  hoped  that  he  has  much  restraint  from  principle.  1 
believe,  however,  the  time  will  come,  when  it  will  be  found  that 
God  has  instituted  but  one  standard  of  morality,  and  that  to  that 
standard  is  required  the  universal  conformity,  of  nations,  and  oi 
men. 

*  Knox's  Essays.  f  Lord  Clarendon's  Essays. 


19 

Of  the  wars  of  statesmen's  ambition,  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak, 
because  no  one  to  whom  the  world  will  listen,  is  willing  to  defend 
them. 

But  statesmen  have,  besides  ambition,  many  purposes  of  nice 
policy  which  make  wars  convenient ;  and  when  they  have  such 
purposes,  they  are  cool  speculators  in  blood.  They  who  have 
many  dependants  have  much  patronage,  and  they  who  have  much 
patronage  have  much  power.  By  a  war,  thousands  become  de- 
pendent on  a  minister  ;  and  if  he  be  disposed,  he  can  often  pursue 
schemes  of  guilt,  and  intrench  himself  in  unpunished  wickedness, 
because  the  war  enables  him  to  silence  the  clamour  of  opposition 
by  an  office,  and  to  secure  the  suffrages  of  venality  by  a  bribe 
He  has  therefore  many  motives  to  war,  in  ambition  that  does  not 
refer  to  conquest ;  or,  in  fear,  that  extends  only  to  his  office  or  his 
pocket :  and  fear  or  ambition  are  sometimes  more  interesting 
considerations  than  the  happiness  and  the  lives  of  men.  Or  per- 
haps he  wants  to  immortalize  his  name  by  a  splendid  administra- 
tion ;  and  he  thinks  no  splendour  so  great  as  that  of  conquest  and 
plunder.  Cabinets  have,  in  truth,  many  secret  motives  of  wars  of 
which  the  people  know  little.  They  talk  in  public  of  invasions  of 
right,  of  breaches  of  treaty,  of  the  support  of  honour,  of  the  neces- 
sity of  retaliation,  when  these  motives  have  no  influence  on  their 
determination.  Some  untold  purpose  of  expediency,  or  the 
private  quarrel  of  a  prince,  or  the  pique  or  anger  of  a  minister, 
are  often  the  real  motives  to  a  contest,  whilst  its  promoters  are 
loudly  talking  of  the  honour  or  the  safety  of  the  country.  The 
motives  to  war  are  indeed  without  end  to  their  number,  or  their 
iniquity,  or  their  insignificance.  What  wras  the  motive  of  Xerxes 
in  his  invasion  of  Greece  ? 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  world  has  sometimes  seen  the  c  x- 
ample  of  a  war,  begun  arid  prosecuted  for  the  simple  purpose  of 
appealing  the  clamours  of  a  people  by  diverting  their  attention  : 

'"  [  well  might  lodge  a  fear 
To  be  again  displaced ;  which,  to  avoid, 
I  cut  them  off,  and  had  a  purpose  now 
To  lead  out  many  to  the  Holy  Land, 
Lest  rest  and  lying  still  might  make  them  look 
Too  near  into  my  state.     Therefore,  my  Harry, 
Be  it  thy  course  to  busy  giddy  minds 
With  foreign  quarrels ;  that  action  hence  borne  oat 
May  waste  the  memory  of  former  days." 


20 

When  the  profligacy  of  a  minister,  or  the  unpopularity  of  his 
measures,  has  excited  public  discontent,  he  can  perhaps  find  no 
other  way  of  escaping  the  resentment  of  the  people,  than  by  thus 
making  them  forget  it.  He  therefore  discovers  a  pretext  for 
denouncing  war  on  some  convenient  country,  in  order  to  divert 
the  indignation  of  the  public  from  himself  to  their  new  made 
enemies.  Such  wickedness  has  existed,  and  may  exist  again. 
Surely  it  is  nearly  the  climax  of  possible  iniquity.  I  know  not 
whether  the  records  of  human  infamy  present  another  crime  ot 
such  enormous  or  such  abandoned  wickedness.  A  monstrous 
profligacy  or  ferocity  that  must  be,  which  for  the  sole  purpose  ot 
individual  interest,  enters  its  closet,  and  coolly  fabricates  pretences 
for  slaughter  ;  that  quietly  contrives  the  exasperation  of  the  public 
hatred,  and  then  flings  the  lighted  brands  of  war  amongst  the 
devoted  and  startling  people. 

The  public,  therefore,  whenever  a  war  is  designed,  should  dili- 
gently inquire  into  the  motives  of  engaging  in  it.  It  should  be  an 
inquiry  that  will  not  be  satisfied  with  idle  declamations  on  inde- 
terminate dangers,  and  that  is  not  willing  to  take  any  thing  upon 
trust.  The  public  should  see  the  danger  for  themselves  ;  and  if 
they  do  not  see  it,  should  refuse  to  be  led,  blindfold,  to  murder  their 
neighbours.  This,  we  think,  is  the  public  duty,  as  it  is  certainly 
the  public  interest.  It  implies  a  forgetfulness  of  the  ends  and 
purposes  of  government,  and  of  the  just  degrees  and  limitations  of 
obedience,  to  be  hurried  into  so  dreadful  a  measure  as  a  war, 
without  knowing  the  reason,  or  asking  it.  A  people  have  the 
power  of  prevention,  and  they  ought  to  exercise  it.  Let  me  not, 
however,  be  charged  with  recommending  violence  or  resistance. 
The  power  of  preventing  war  consists  in  the  power  of  refusing  to 
take  part  in  it.  This  is  the  mode  of  opposing  political  evil,  which 
Christianity  permits,  and,  in  truth,  requires.  And  as  it  is  the  most 
Christian  method,  so,  as  it  respects  war,  it  were  certainly  the 
most  efficacious ;  for  it  is  obvious  that  war  cannot  be  carried  on 
without  the  co-operation  of  the  people. 

But  I  believe  the  greatest  cause  of  the  popularity  of  war,  and 
of  the  facility  with  which  we  engage  in  it,  consists  in  this  ;  that  an 
idea  of  glory  is  attached  to  military  exploits,  and  of  honour  to  the 
military  profession.  Something  of  elevation  is  supposed  to  belong 
to  the  character  of  the  soldier  ;  whether  it  be  that  we  involunta 


21 

rily  presume  his  personal  courage ;  or  that  he  who  makes  it  his 
business  to  defend  the  rest  of  the  community,  acquires  the  superi< 
ority  of  a  protector ;  or  that  the  profession  implies  an  exemption 
from  the  laborious  and  the  "  meaner"  occupations  of  life.  There 
is  something  in  war,  whether  phantom  or  reality,  which  glitters 
and  allures  ;  and  the  allurement  is  powerful,  since  we  see  that  it 
induces  us  to  endure  hardships  and  injuries,  and  expose  life  to  a 
continual  danger.  Men  do  not  become  soldiers  because  life  is 
indifferent  to  them,  but  because  of  some  extrinsic'  circumstances 
which  attach  to  the  profession ;  and  some  of  the  most  influential 
of  these  circumstances  are  the  fame,  the  spirit,  the  honour,  the 
glory,  which  mankind  agree  to  belong  to  the  warrior.  The 
glories  of  battle,  and  of  those  who  perish  in  it,  or  who  return  in 
triumph  to  their  country,  are  favourite  topics  of  declamation  with 
the  historian,  the  biographer,  and  the  poet.  They  have  told  us  a 
thousand  times  of  dying  heroes,  who  "  resign  their  lives  amidst  the 
joys  of  conquest,  and  filled  with  England's  glory,  smile  in  death  ;" 
and  thus  every  excitement  that  eloquence  and  genius  can  com- 
mand is  employed  to  arouse  that  ambition  of  fame  which  can 
be  gratified  only  at  the  expense  of  blood. 

There  are  many  ways  in  which  a  soldier  derives  pleasure  from 
his  profession.  A  military  officer*  when  he  walks  the  streets,  is 
an  object  of  notice;  he  is  a  man  of  spirit,  of  honor,  of  gallantry  ; 
wherever  he  be,  he  is  distinguished  from  ordinary  men  ;  he  is  an 
acknowledged  gentleman.  If  he  engage  in  battle,  he  is  brave,  and 
noble,  and  magnanimous  :  If  he  be  killed,  he  has  died  for  his 
country;  he  has  closed  his  career  with  glory.  Now  all  this  is 
agreeable  to  the  mind ;  it  flatters  some  of  its  strongest  and  most 
pervading  passions ;  and  the  gratification  which  these  passions 
derive  from  war,  is  one  of  the  great  reasons  why  men  so 
villingly  engage  in  it. 

Now  we  ask  the  question  of  a  man  of  reason,  what  is  the 
foundation  of  this  fame  and  glory  ?  We  profess  that,  according 
to  the  best  of  our  powers  of  discovery,  no  solid  foundation  can  be 
found.  Upon  the  foundation,  whatever  it  be,  an  immense  struct* 
ure  is  however  raised — a  structure  so  vast,  so  brilliant,  so  at- 

*  These  observations  apply  also  to  the  naval  profession  ;  but  I  have  in  this  pas- 
sage, as  in  some  other  parts  of  the  Essay,  mentioned  only  sola  iers,  to  prevent 
circumlocution. 


22 

tractive,  that  the  greater  portion  of  mankind  are  content  to  gaze 
in  admiration,  without  any  inquiry  into  its  basis,  or  any  solicitude 
for  its  durability. — If,  however,  it  should  be,  that  the  gorgeous 
temple  will  be  able  to  stand  only  till  Christian  truth  and  light  be- 
come predominant,  it  surely  will  be  wise  of  those  who  seek  a 
niche  in  its  apartments  as  their  paramount  and  final  good,  to 
pause  ere  they  proceed.  If  they  desire  a  reputation  that  shall 
outlive  guilt  and  fiction,  let  them  look  to  the  basis  of  military 
fame.  If  this  fame  should  one  day  sink  into  oblivion  and 
contempt,  it  will  not  be  the  first  instance  in  which  wide-spread 
glory  has  been  found  to  be  a  glittering  bubble,  that  has  burst,  and 
been  forgotten.  Look  at  the  days  of  chivalry.  Of  the  ten 
thousand  Quixottes  of  the  middle  ages,  where  is  now  the  honour 
or  the  name  ?  Yet  poets  once  sang  their  praises,  and  the  chron- 
icler of  their  aqhievments  believed  he  was  recording  an  everlast- 
ing fame.  Where  are  now  the  glories  of  the  tournament  ? 
Glories 

"  Of  which  all  Europe  rung  from  side  to  side." 

Where  is  the  champion  whom  princes  carassed,  and  nobles 
envied  ?  Where  are  now  the  triumphs  of  Duns  Scotus,  and 
where  are  the  folios  that  perpetuated  his  fame  ?  The  glories  of 
war  have  indeed  outlived  these.  Human  passions  are  less  muta- 
ble than  human  follies  ;  but  I  am  willing  to  avow  my  conviction 
that  these  glories  are  alike  destined  to  sink  into  forgetfulness  ; 
and  that  the  time  is  approaching,  when  the  applauses  of  heroism, 
and  the  splendours  of  conquest,  will  be  remembered  only  as  follies 
and  iniquities  that  are  past.  Let  him  who  seeks  for  fame,  other 
than  that  which  an  era  of  Christian  purity  will  allow,  make  haste ; 
for  every  hour  that  he  delays  its  acquisition,  will  shorten  its  dura- 
tion. This  is  certain,  if  there  be  certainty  in  the  promises  ot 
Heaven. 

In  inquiring  into  the  foundation  of  military  glory,  it  will  be 
borne  in  mind,  that  it  is  acknowledged  by  our  adversaries,  that 
this  glory  is  not  recognized  by  Christianity.  No  part  of  the  heroic 
character,  says  one  of  the  great  advocates  of  war,  is  the  subject 
of  the  "  commendation,  or  precepts,  or  example"  of  Christ ;  but  the 
character  and  dispositions  most  opposite  to  the  heroic  are  the. 
subject  of  them  all.*  This  is  a  great  concession  ;  and  it  surely 

*Dr.  Paley. 


23 

is  the  business  of  Christians,  who  are  sincere  in  their  profession 
to  doubt  the  purity  of  that  "  glory"  and  the  rectitude  of  that 
"  heroic  character,"  which  it  is  acknowledged  that  their  Great  In- 
structer  never  in  any  shape  countenanced,  and  often  obliquely 
condemned.! 

If  it  be  attempted  to  define  why  glory  is  allotted  to  the  soldier 
we  suppose  that  we  shall  be  referred  to  his  skill,  or  his  bravery 
or  his  patriotism. 

Of  skill  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak,  since  very  few  have  the 
opportunity  of  displaying  it.  The  business  of  the  great  majority 
is  only  obedience  ;  and  obedience  of  that  sort  which  almost  pre- 
cludes the  exercise  of  talent. 

The  rational  and  immortal  being,  wrho  raises  the  edifice  of  his 
fame  on  simple  bravery,  has  chosen  but  on  unworthy  and  a  frail 
foundation.  Separate  bravery  from  motives  and  purposes,  and 
what  will  remain  but  that  which  is  possessed  by  a  mastiff  or  a 
game-cock  ?  All  just,  all  rational,  and  we  will  venture  to  affirm. 
all  permanent  reputation,  refers  to  the  mind  or  to  virtue  ;  and 
what  connexion  has  animal  power  or  animal  hardihood  with  in- 
tellect or  goodness  ?  I  do  not  decry  courage.  I  know  that  He 
who  was  better  acquainted  than  we  are  with  the  nature  and  worth 
of  human  actions,  attached  much  value  to  courage  ;  but  he  at- 
tached none  to  bravery.  Courage  He  recommended  by  his  precepts, 
and  enforced  by  his  example  ;  bravery  He  never  recommended  at 
all.  The  wisdom  of  this  distinction,  and  its  accordancy  with  the 
principles  of  his  religion,  are  plain.  Bravery  requires  the  existence 
of  many  of  those  dispositions  which  he  disallowed.  Animosity, 
resentment,  the  desire  of  retaliation,  the  disposition  to  injure  and 
destroy,  all  this  is  necessary  to  bravery  ;  but  all  this  is  incompa- 
tible with  Christianity.  The  courage  which  Christianity  requires 
is  to  bravery  what  fortitude  is  to  daring  —  an  effort  of  the  mind 
rather  than  of  the  spirits.  It  is  a  calm,  steady  determinateness  of 
purpose,  that  will  not  be  diverted  by  solicitation,  or  awed  by  fear. 
"Behold,  I  go  bound  in  the  spirit  unto  Jerusalem,  not  knowing  the 
things  that  shall  befall  me  there,  save  that  the  Holy  Ghost  wit- 
's esseth  in  every  city,  saying,  that  bonds  and  afflictions  abide  me. 

j-  "  Christianity  quite  annihilates  the  disposition  for  martial  glory."  —  Bishoj 
Watson. 


UNIVERSITY 


24 

But  none  of  these  things  move  me  ;  neither  count  I  my  I  fe  dear  unto 
myself"*  What  resemblance  has  bravery  to  courage  like  this  ? 
This  courage  is  a  virtue,  and  a  virtue  which  it  is  difficult  to  ac- 
quire or  to  practise  ;  and  we  have,  therefore,  heedlessly  or  inge- 
niously, transferred  its  praise  to  another  quality,  which  is  inferior 
in  its  nature,  and  easier  to  acquire,  in  order  that  we  may  obtain 
the  reputation  of  virtue  at  a  cheap  rate.  That  simple  bravery 
implies  much  merit,  it  will  be  difficult  to  show — at  least,  if  it  be 
meritorious,  we  think  it  will  not  always  be  easy,  in  awarding  the 
honors  of  a  battle,  to  determine  the  preponderance  of  virtue 
between  the  soldier  and  the  horse  which  carries  him. 

But  patriotism  is  the  great  foundation  of  the  soldier's  glory. — 
Patriotism  is  the  universal  theme.  To  "  fight  nobly  for  our  coun- 
try ;" — to  "  fall,  covered  with  glory,  in  our  country's  cause  ;" — to 
"  sacrifice  our  lives  for  the  liberties,  and  laws,  and  religion  of  our 
country" — are  phrases  in  the  mouth  of  every  man.  What  do  they 
mean,  and  to  whom  do  they  apply  ? 

We  contend  that  to  say  generally  of  those  who  perish  in  war, 
that  "  they  have  died  for  their  country,"  is  simply  untrue  ;  and  for 
this  simple  reason,  that  they  did  not  fight  for  it.  To  impugn  the 
notion  of  ages,  is  perhaps  a  hardy  task  ;  but  we  wish  to  employ, 
not  dogmatism,  but  argument ;  and  we  maintain  that  men  have  com- 
monly no  such  purity  of  motive,  that  they  have  no  such  patriotism. 
What  is  the  officer's  motive  to  entering  the  army  ?  We  appeal  to 
himself.  Is  it  not  that  he  may  obtain  an  income  1  And  what  is  the 
motive  of  the  private  ?  Is  it  not  that  he  prefers  a  life  of  idleness  t •;• 
industry,  or  that  he  had  no  wish  but  the  wish  for  change  ?  Having 
entered  the  army,  what,  again,  is  the  soldier's  motive  to  fight  ?  Is 
it  not  that  fighting  is  a  part  of  his  business — that  it  is  one  of  the 
conditions  of  his  servitude  ?  We  are  not  now  saying  that  these 
motives  are  bad,  but  w^e  are  saying  that  they  are  the  motives, — 
and  that  patriotism  is  not.  Of  those  who  fall  in  battle,  is  there 
one  in  a  hundred  who  even  thinks  of  his  country's  good  ?  He 
thinks,  perhaps,  of  its  glory,  and  of  the  honour  of  his  regiment, 
but  for  his  country's  advantage  or  welfare,  he  has  no  care  and  no 
thought.  He  fights,  because  fighting  is  a  matter  of  course  to  a 
soldier,  or  because  his  personal  reputation  is  at  stake,  or  because 

*  Acts  xx.  22. 


25 

ne  is  compelled  to  fight,  or  because  he  thinks  nothing  at  all  of  \i 
matter  ;  but  seldom,  indeed,  because  he  wishes  to  benefit  his. 
country.  He  fights  in  battle,  as  a  horse  draws  in  a  carriage,  be- 
cause he  is  compelled  to  do  it,  or  because  he  has  done  it  before  : 
but  he  seldom  thinks  more  of  his  country's  good,  than  the  same 
horse,  if  he  were  carrying  corn  to  a  granary,  would  think  he  was 
providing  for  the  comforts  of  his  master. 

And,  indeed,  if  the  soldier  speculated  on  his  country's  good,  he 
often  cannot  tell  how  it  is  affected  by  the  quarrel.  Nor  is  it  to  be 
expected  of  him  that  he  should  know  this.  When  there  is  a  ru- 
mour of  a  war,  there  is  an  endless  diversity  of  opinions  as  to  its 
expediency,  and  endless  oppositions  of  conclusion,  whether  it  will 
tend  more  to  the  good  of  the  country,,  to  prosecute  or  avoid  it.  It 
senators  and  statesmen  cannot  calculate  the  good  or  evil  of  a  war, 
if  one  promises  advantages  and  another  predicts  ruin, — how  is  the 
soldier  to  decide  ?  And  without  deciding  and  promoting  the  good, 
how  is  he  to  be  patriotic  ?  Nor  will  much  be  gained  by  saying, 
that  questions  of  policy  form  no  part  of  his  business,  and  that  he 
has  no  other  duty  than  obedience ;  since  this  is  to  reduce  his 
agency  to  the  agency  of  a  machine  ;  and  moreover,  by  this  rule, 
his  arms  might  be  directed,  indifferently,  to  the  annoyance  of  an- 
other country,  or  to  the  oppression  of  his  own.  The  truth  is,  that 
we  give  to  the  soldier  that  of  which  we  are  wont  to  be  sufficiently 
sparing — a  gratuitous  concession  of  merit.  In  ordinary  life,  an 
individual  maintains  his  individual  opinions,  and  pursues  corres 
pondent  conduct,  with  the  approbation  of  one  set  of  men,  mid  the 
censures  of  another.  One  party  says,  he  is  benefiting  his  country, 
and  another  maintains  that  he  is  ruining  it.  But  the  soldier,  for 
whatever  he  fights,  and  whether  really  in  promotion  of  his  coun- 
try's good,  or  in  opposition  to  it,  is  always  a  patriot,  and  is  always 
secure  of  his  praise.  If  the  war  is  a  national  calamity,  and  was 
foreseen  to  be  such,  still  he  fights  for  his  country.  .  If  his  judgment 
has  decided  against  the  war,  and  against  its  justice  or  expediency, 
still  he  fights  for  his  country.  He  is  always  virtuous.  If  he  but 
uses  a  bayonet,  he  is  always  a  patriot. 

To  sacrifice  our  lives  for  the  liberties,  and  laws,  and  religion  o1 
our  native  land,  are  undoubtedly  high-sounding  words : — but  who 
are  they  that  will  do  it  ?  Who  is  it  that  will  sacrifice  his  life  for 
his  country  ?  Will  the  senator  who  supports  a  war  ?  Will  the 

4 


26 

writer  who  declaims  upon  patriotism  ?  Will  the  minister  of  re 
ligion  who  recommends  the  sacrifice  ?  Take  away  glory — take 
away  war,  and  there  is  not  a  man  of  them  who  will  do  it.  Will 
you  sacrifice  your  life  at  home  ?  If  the  loss  of  your  life  in  London 
or  at  York,  would  procure  just  so  much  benefit  to  your  country, 
as  the  loss  of  one  soldier  in  the  field,  would  you  be  willing  to  lay 
your  head  upon  the  block  ?  Are  you  willing  to  die  without  notice 
and  without  remembrance ;  and  for  the  sake  of  this  little  undis- 
coverable  contribution  to  your  country's  good  ?  You  would,  per- 
haps, die  to  save  your  country  ;  but  this  is  not  the  question.  A 
soldier's  death  does  not  save  his  country.  The  question  is,  whe- 
ther, without  any  of  the  circumstances  of  war,  without  any  of  its 
glory  or  its  pomp,  you  are  willing  to  resign  yourself  to  the  execu- 
tioner. If  you  are  not,  you  are  not  willing  to  die  for  your  coun- 
try. And  there  is  not  an  individual  amongst  the  thousands  who 
declaim  upon  patriotism,  who  is  willing  to  do  it.  He  will  lay 
down  his  life,  indeed — but  it  must  be  in  war :  He  is  willing  to 
die — but  it  is  not  for  patriotism,  but  for  glory. 

The  argument  we  think  is  clear — that  patriotism  is  NOT  the 
motive  :  and  that  in  no  rational  use  of  language  can  it  be  said 
that  the  soldier  "  dies  for  his  country."  Men  will  not  sacrifice 
their  Jives  at  all,  unless  it  be  in  war,  and  they  do  not  sacrifice 
them  in  war  from  motives  of  patriotism.* 

*  We  know  that  there  may  be,  and  have  been,  cases  in  which  the  soldier 
possesses  purer  motives.  An  invasion  may  arouse  the  national  patriotism  and 
arm  a  people  for  the  unmingled  purpose  of  defending  themselves.  Here  is  a 
definite  purpose,  a  purpose  which  every  individual  understands  and  is  interested 
in :  and  if  he  die  under  such  circumstances,  we  do  not  deny  that  his  motives  are 
patriotic.  The  actions  to  which  they  prompt,  are,  however,  a  separate  considera- 
tion, and  depend  for  their  qualites  on  the  rectitude  of  war  itself.  Motives  may  be 
patriotic,  when  actions  are  bad.  I  might,  perhaps,  benefit  my  country  by  blowing 
up  a  fleet,  of  which  the  cargo  would  injure  our  commerce.  My  motive  may  be 
patriotic,  but  my  action  is  vicious. 

It  is  not  sufficiently  borne  in  mind,  that  patriotism,  even  much  purer  than  this,  is 
not  necessarily  a  virtue.  "  Christianity,"  says  Bishop  Watson5  "  does  not  encour- 
age particular  patriotism,  in  opposition  to  general  benignity."  And  the  reason  i? 
easy  of  discovery.  Christianity  is  designed  to  benefit,  not  a  community,  but  the 
world.  If  it  unconditionally  encouraged  particular  patriotism,  the  duties  of  a 
subject  of  one  state  would  often  be  in  opposition  to  those  of  a  subject  of  another. 
Christianity,  however,  knows  no  such  inconsistencies  ;  and  whatever  patriotism 
therefore,  is  opposed,  in  its  exercise,  to  the  general  welfare  of  mankind,  is,  in  ne 
degree,  a  virtue. 


27 

What  then  is  the  foundation  of  military  fame  ?  Is  it  bre  very  ? 
Bravery  has  little  connexion  with  reason,  and  less  with  religion. 
Intellect  may  despise,  and  Christianity  condemns  it.  Is  it  patriot- 
ism ?  Do  we  refer  to  the  soldier's  motives  and  purposes  ?  If  we 
do,  he  is  not  necessarily,  or  often,  a  patriot.  It  was  a  common 
expression  amongst  sailors,  and,  perhaps,  may  be  so  still — "  I  hate 
the  French,  because  they  are  slaves,  and  wear  wooden  shoes." 
This  was  the  sum  of  their  reasonings  and  their  patriotism ;  and  I 
do  not  think  the  mass  of  those  who  fight  on  land,  possess  a  greater. 

Crimes  should  be  traced  to  their  causes :  and  guilt  should  be 
fixed  upon  those  who  occasion,  although  they  may  not  perpetrate 
them.  And  to  whom  are  the  frequency  and  the  crimes  of  war  to 
be  principally  attributed?  To  the  directors  of  public  opinion,  to 
the  declaimers  upon  glory : — to  men  who  sit  quietly  at  home  in 
their  studies  and  at  their  desks ;  to  the  historian,  and  the  biogra- 
pher, and  the  poet,  and  the  moral  philosopher ;  to  the  pamph- 
leteer ;  to  the  editor  of  the  newspaper ;  to  the  teacher  of  religion. 
One  example  of  declamation  from  the  pulpit  I  would  offer  to  the 
reader : — "  Go  then,  ye  defenders  of  your  country ;  advance,  with 
alacrity,  into  the  field,  where  God  himself  musters  the  hosts  to 
war.  Religion  is  too  much  interested  in  your  success,  not  to  lend 
you  her  aid.  She  will  shed  over  this  enterprise  her  selectest  in- 
fluence. I  cannot  but  imagine,  the  virtuous  heroes,  legislators, 
and  patriots,  of  every  age  and  country,  are  bending  from  their 
elevated  seats  to  witness  this  contest,  as  if  they  were  incapable, 
till  it  be  brought  to  a  favourable  issue,  of  enjoying  their  eternal 
repose.  Enjoy  that  repose,  illustrious  immortals  !  Your  mantle 
fell  when  you  ascended,  and  thousands,  inflamed  with  spirit,  and 
impatient  to  tread  in  your  steps,  are  ready  to  swear  by  Him  that 
sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  liveth  for  ever  and  ever,  they  will 
protect  freedom  in  her  last  asylum,  and  never  desert  that  cause 
which  you  sustained  by  your  labours,  and  cemented  with  your 
blood.  And  thou,  sole  Ruler  among  the  children  of  men,  to  whom 
the  shields  of  the  earth  belong, — Gird  on  thy  sword,  thou  most 
Mighty.  Go  forth  with  our  hosts  in  the  day  of  battle  !  Impart, 
in  addition  to  their  hereditary  valour,  that  confidence  of  success 
which  springs  from  thy  presence  !  Pour  into  their  hearts  the 
spirit  of  departed  heroes !  Inspire  them  with  thine  own ;  and 
while  led  by  thine  hand,  and  fighting  under  thy  banners,  open 


28 

tnou  their  eyes  to  behold  in  every  valley,  and  in  every  plain,  wha; 
the  prophet  beheld  by  the  same  illumination — chariots  of  fire 
and  horses  of  fire.  Then  shall  the  strong  man  be  as  tow,  and  the 
maker  of  it  as  a  spark ;  and  they  shall  both  burn  together,  and 
none  shall  quench  them  !"*  Of  such  irreverence  of  language, 
employed  to  convey  such  violence  of  sentiment,  the  world,  I  hope, 
has  had  few  examples.  Oh !  how  unlike  another  exhortation — 
"  Put  on  mercies,  kindness,  humbleness  of  mind,  meekness,  long- 
suffering,  forbearing  one  another,  and  forgiving  one  another,  if 
any  man  have  a  quarrel  against  any."f 

"  As  long  as  mankind,"  says  Gibbon,  "  shall  continue  to  bestow 
more  liberal  applause  on  their  destroyers  than  on  their  benefac- 
tors, the  thirst  of  military  glory  will  ever  be  the  vice  of  the  most 
exalted  characters."  J  "  'Tis  strange  to  imagine,"  says  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury,  "that  war,  which  of  all  things  appears  the  most 
savage,  should  be  the  passion  of  the  most  heroic  spirits." — But  he 
gives  us  the  reason. — "  By  a  small  misguidance  of  the  affection,  a 
lover  of  mankind  becomes  a  ravager ;  a  hero  and  deliverer  be- 
comes an  oppressor  and  destroyer.'^  This  is  the  "  vice,"  and  this 
is  the  "  misguidance,"  which  we  say,  that  a  large  proportion  ot 
the  writers  of  every  civilized  country  are  continually  occasioning 

*  "  The  Sentiments  proper  to  the  Crisis." — A  Sermon,  preached  October  19, 
1803,  by  Robert  Hall,  A.  M. 

f  Nor  is  the  preacher  inconsistent  with  Apostles  alone.  He  is  also  inconsistent 
with  himself.  In  another  discourse,  delivered  in  the  preceding  year,  he  says  : — "  The 
safety  of  nations  is  not  to  be  sought  in  ar;s  or  in  arms.  War  reverses,  with  respect 
to  its  objects,  all  ihe  rules  of  morality.  It  is  nothing  less  than  a  temporary  repeal 
of  all  the  principles  of  virtue.  It  is  a  system,  out  of  which  almost  all  the  virtues 
are  excluded,  and  in  which  nearly  all  the  vices  are  incorporated.  In  instructing  us 
to  consider  a  portion  of  our  fellow  creatures  as  the  proper  objects  of  enmity,  it  re- 
moves, as  far  as  they  are  concerned,  the  basis  of  all  society,  of  all  civilization  and 
virtue ;  for  the  basis  of  these,  is  the  good  will  due  to  every  individual  of  the  spt  ties.'' 
— "  Religion,"  then,  we  are  told,  "  sheds  its  selectcst  influence  over  that  which 
repeals  all  the  principles  of  virtue  " — over  that  "  in  which  nearly  all  the  vices  are 
incorporated!"  What  "religion"  it  is  which  does  this,  I  do  not  know, — but  I 
know  that  it  is  not  the  religion  of  Christ.  TRUTH  never  led  into  contradictions 
like  these.  Well  was  it  said  that  we  cannot  serve  two  masters.  The  quotations 
which  we  have  given,  are  evidence  sufficient  that  he  who  holds  with  the  one  neg- 
lects the  other. 

I  Decline  and  Fall. 

$  Essay  on  he  Freedom  of  Wit  and  Humour. 


29 

and  promoting ;  and  thus,  without,  perhaps,  any  purpose  of  mis- 
chief, they  constitute  more  to  the  destruction  of  mankind  than  ra- 
pine or  ambition.  A  writer  thinks,  perhaps,  that  it  is  not  much 
harm  to  applaud  bravery.  The  divergency  from  virtue  may,  in- 
deed, be  small  in  its  beginning,  but  the  effect  of  his  applauses 
proceeds  in  the  line  of  obliquity,  until  it  conducts,  at  last,  to  every 
excess  of  outrage,  to  every  variety  of  crime,  to  every  mode  of 
human  destruction. 

There  is  one  species  of  declamation  on  the  glories  of  those  who 
die  in  battle,  to  which  I  would  beg  the  notice  of  the  reader.  We 
are  told  that  when  the  last  breath  of  exultation  and  defiance  is 
departed,  the  intrepid  spirit  rises  triumphantly  from  the  field  of  glory 
to  its  kindred  heavens.  What  the  hero  has  been  on  earth,  it  mat- 
ters not :  if  he  dies  by  a  musket  ball,  he  enters  heaven  in  his  own 
right.  All  men  like  to  suppose  that  they  shall  attain  felicity  at 
last ;  and  to  find  that  they  can  attain  it  without  goodness  and  in 
spite  of  vice,  is  doubtless  peculiarly  solacing.  The  history  of  the 
hero's  achievements  wants,  indeed,  a  completeness  without  it ; 
and  this  gratuitous  transfer  of  his  soul  to  heaven,  forms  an  agree- 
able conclusion  to  his  story. 

I  would  be  far  from  "  dealing  damnation  round  the  land,"  and 
undoubtingly  believe  that  of  those  who  fall  in  battle,  many  have 
found  an  everlasting  resting-place.  But  an  indiscriminate  con- 
signment of  the  brave  to  felicity,  is  certainly  unwarranted ;  and 
if  wickedness  consists  in  the  promotion  of  wickedness,  it  is  wicked 
too. 

If  we  say  in  positive  and  glowing  language,  of  men  indiscrimi- 
nately, and  therefore  of  the  bad,  that  they  rise  on  the  wings  of 
ecstacy  to  heaven,  we  do  all  that  language  can  do  in  the  encour- 
agement of  profligacy.  The  terrors  of  religion  may  still  be 
dreaded ;  but  we  have,  at  least  to  the  utmost  of  our  power, 
diminished  their  influence.  The  mind  willingly  accepts  the  assu- 
rance, or  acquiesces  in  the  falsehood  which  it  wishes  to  be  true ; 
and  in  spite  of  all  their  better  knowledge,  it  may  be  feared  that 
some  continue  in  profligacy,  in  the  doubting  hope  that  what  poets 
and  historians  tell  them  may  not  be  a  fiction. 

Perhaps  the  most  operative  encouragement  which  these  decla- 
mations give  to  the  soldier's  vices,  is  contained  in  this  circum- 
stance— that  they  manifest  that  public  opinion  does  not  hold  then? 


30 

in  abhorrence.  Public  opinion  is  one  of  the  most  efficacious  re- 
gulators of  the  passions  of  mankind ;  and  upon  the  soldier  this 
rein  is  peculiarly  influential.  His  profession  and  his  personal 
conduct  derive  almost  all  their  value  and  their  reputation  from 
the  opinion  of  the  world,  and  from  that  alone.  If,  therefore,  the 
public  voice  does  not  censure  his  vices — if,  in  spite  of  his  vices,  it 
awards  him  everlasting  happiness,  what  restraint  remains  upon 
his  passions,  or  what  is  the  wonder  if  they  be  not  restrained  ? 

The  peculiar  application  of  the  subject  to  our  purpose  is,  how- 
ever, that  these  and  similar  representations  are  motives  to  the 
profession  of  arms.  The  military  life  is  made  a  privileged  profes- 
sion, in  which  a  man  may  indulge  vices  with  impunity.  Hiy 
occupation  is  an  apology  for  his  crimes,  and  shields  them  from 
punishment.  And  what  greater  motive  to  the  military  life  can 
be  given?  Or  what  can  be  more  atrocious  than  the  crime  of 
those  who  give  it  ?  I  know  not,  indeed,  whether  the  guilt  pre- 
dominates, or  the  folly.  Pitiable  imbecility  surely  it  is,  that  can 
persuade  itself  to  sacrifice  all  the  beauties  of  virtue,  and  all  the 
realities  and  terrors  of  religion,  to  the  love  of  the  flowing  imagery 
of  spirits  ascending  to  heaven.  Whether  writers  shall  do  this,  is  a 
question,  not  of  choice,  but  of  duty:  if  we  would  not  be  the  abet- 
ers  of  crime,  and  the  sharers  of  its  guilt,  it  is  imperative  that  we 
refrain. 

The  reader  will,  perhaps,  have  observed  that  some  of  those 
writers  who  are  liberal  contributors  to  the  military  passion,  occa- 
sionally, in  moments  when  truth  and  nature  seem  to  have  burst 
the  influence  of  habit,  emphatically  condemn  the  system  which 
they  have  so  often  contributed  to  support.  There  are  not  many 
books  of  which  the  tendency  is  more  warlike,  or  which  are  more 
likely  to  stimulate  the  passion  for  martial  glory,  than  the  Life  of 
Nelson,  by  Southey ;  a  work,  in  the  composition  of  which,  it  pro- 
bably never  suggested  itself  to  the  author  to  inquire  whether  he 
were  not  contributing  to  the  destruction  of  mankind.  A  con- 
tributor, however,  as  he  has  been,  we  find  in  another  of  his  works, 
this  extraordinary  and  memorable  passage  : — "  There  is  but  one 
community  of  Christians  in  the  world,  and  that  unhappily,  of  all 
communities  one  of  the  smallest,  enlightened  enough  to  understand 
the  prohibition  of  war  by  our  Divine  Master,  in  its  plain,  literal, 
and  undeniable  sense ;  and  conscientious  enough  to  obey  it,  sub- 


31 

duing  the  very  instinct  of  nature  to  obedience."*  Of  these  vol- 
untary or  involuntary  testimonies  of  the  mind  against  the  principles 
which  it  habitually  possesses,  and  habitually  inculcates,  many  ex- 
amples might  be  given  ;f  and  they  are  valuable  testimonies,  because 
they  appear  to  be  elicited  by  the  influence  of  simple  nature  and 
unclouded  truth.  This,  I  think,  is  their  obvious  character.  They 
will  commonly  be  found  to  have  been  written  when  the  mind  has 
become  sobered  by  reason,  or  tranquilized  by  religion ;  when  the 
feelings  are  not  excited  by  external  stimulants,  and  when  conquest, 
and  honour,  and  glory  are  reduced  to  that  station  of  importance 
to  which  truth  assigns  them. 

But  whether  such  testimonies  have  much  tendency  to  give  con- 
viction to  a  reader,  I  know  not.  Surrounded  as  they  are  with  a 
general  contrariety  of  sentiment,  it  is  possible  that  those  -who 
read  them  may  pass  them  by  as  the  speculations  of  impracticable 
morality.  I  cannot,  however,  avoid  recommending  the  reader, 
whenever  he  meets  with  passages  like  these,  seriously  to  examine 
into  their  meaning  and  their  force :  to  inquire  whether* they  be 
not  accordant  with  the  purity  of  truth,  and  whether  they  do  not 
possess  the  greater  authority,  because  they  have  forced  them- 
selves from  the  mind  when  least  likely  to  be  deceived,  and  in  op- 
position to  all  its  habits  and  all  its  associations. 

Such,  then,  are  amongst  the  principal  of  the  causes  of  war. 
Some  consist  in  want  of  thought,  and  some  in  delusion ;  some  are 
mercenary,  and  some  simply  criminal.  Whether  any  or  all  of 
them  form  a  motive  to  the  desolation  of  empires  and  to  hunu  .1 
destruction,  such  as  a  good  or  a  reasoning  man,  who  abstracts 
himself  from  habitual  feelings,  can  contemplate  with  approba- 
tion, is  a  question  which  every  one  should  ask  and  determine  for 
himself.  A  conflict  of  nations  is  a  serious  thing:  no  motive 
arising  from  our  passions  should  occasion  it,  or  have  any  influence 
in  occasioning  it :  supposing  the  question  of  lawfulness  to  be 
superseded,  war  should  be  imposed  only  by  stern,  inevitable,  un- 
yielding necessity.  That  such  a  necessity  is  contained  in  these 
motives,  I  think  cannot  be  shown.  We  may,  therefore,  reasona- 
bly question  the  defensibility  of  the  custom,  which  is  continued 
by  such  causes,  and  supported  with  such  motives.  If  a  tree  is 

*  History  of  Brazil.  f  See  "  the  Inquiry,"  &c. 


known  by  its  fruits,  we  may  also  judge  the  fruit  by  the  tree 
'*  Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns."     If  the  motives  to  war 
and  its  causes  are  impure,  war  itself  cannot  be  virtuous ;  and  J 
would,  therefore,  solemnly  invite  the  reader  to  give,  to  the  sue 
ceeding  Inquiry,  his  sober  and  Christian  attention. 


II 


AN    INQUIRY,   &c 


WHEN  I  endeavor  to  divest  myself  of  the  influence  of  habit, 
and  to  contemplate  a  battle  with  those  emotions  which  it  would 
excite  in  the  mind  of  a  being  who  had  never  before  heard  of 
human  slaughter,  I  find  that  I  am  impressed  only  with  horror  and 
astonishment:  and  perhaps,  of  the  two  emotions,  astonishment  is 
the  greater. 

That  several  thousand  persons  should  meet  together,  and  then 
deliberately  begin  to  kill  one  another,  appears  to  the  understand- 
ing a  proceeding  so  preposterous,  so  monstrous,  that  I  think  a 
being  such  as  I  have  supposed,  would  inevitably  conclude  that 
they  were  mad.  Nor,  if  it  were,  attempted  to  explain  to  him 
some  motives  to  such  conduct,  do  I  beiieve  that  he  \vould  be  able 
to  comprehend  how  any  possible  circumstances  could  make  it 
reasonable.  The  ferocity  and  prodigious  folly  of  the  act  would 
out-balance  the  weight  of  every  conceivable  motive,  and  he 
would  turn,  unsatisfied,  away, 

"  Astonished  at  the  madness  of  mankind." 

There  is  an  advantage  in  making  suppositions  such  as  these  ; 
because,  when  the  mind  has  been  familiarized  to  a  practice  how- 
ever monstrous  or  inhuman,  it  loses  some  of  its  sagacity  of  moral 
perception — profligacy  becomes  honor,  and  inhumanity  becomes 
spirit.  But  if  the  subject  is  by  some  circumstance  presented  to 
the  mind  unconnected  with  any  of  its  previous  associations,  we 
see  it  with  a  new  judgment  and  new  feelings ;  and  wonder, 
perhaps,  that  we  have  not  felt  so  or  thought  so  before.  And  such 
occasions  it  is  the  part  of  a  wise  man  to  seek ;  since  if  they 
never  happen  to  us,  it  will  often  be  difficult  for  us  accurately  to 
estimate  the  qualities  of  human  actions,  or  to  determine  whether 

5 


34 

we  approve  them  from  a  decision  of  our  judgment,  or  whethei 
we  yield  to  them  only  the  acquiescence  of  habit. 

It  is  worthy  at  least  of  notice  and  remembrance,  that  the  only 
being  in  the  creation  of  Providence  which  engages  in  the  whole- 
sale destruction  of  his  own  species,  is  man;  that  being  who 
alone  possesses  reason  to  direct  his  conduct,  who  alone  is  required 
to  love  his  fellows,  and  who  alone  hopes  in  futurity  for  repose 
and  peace.  All  this  seems  wonderful,  and  may  reasonably 
humiliate  us.  The  powers  which  elevate  us  above  the  rest  of  the 
creation,  we  have  employed  in  attaining  to  pre-eminence  of 
outrage  and  malignity. 

It  may  properly  be  a  subject  of  wonder,  that  the  arguments 
which  are  brought  to  justify  a  custom  such  as  war  receive  so 
little  investigation.  It  must  be  a  studious  ingenuity  of  mischief, 
which  could  devise  a  practice  more  calamitous  hr  horrible ;  and 
yet  it  is  a  practice  of  which  it  rarely  occurs  to  us  to  inquire  into 
the  necessity,  or  to  ask  whether  it  cannot  be  or  ought  not  to  be 
avoided.  In  one  truth,  however,  all  will  acquiesce, — that  the 
arguments  in  favor  of  such  a  practice  should  be  unanswerably 
strong. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  experience  and  the  practice  of  other 
ages  have  superseded  the  necessity  of  inquiry  in  our  own ;  that 
there  can  be  no  reason  to  question  the  lawfulness  of  that  which 
has  been  sanctioned  by  forty  centuries ;  or  that  he  who  presumes 
to  question  it  is  amusing  himself  with  schemes  of  visionary 
philanthropy.  "  There  is  not,  it  may  be,"  says  Lord  Clarendon, 
"a  greater  obstruction  to  the  investigation  of  truth,  or  the 
improvement  of  knowledge,  than  the  too  frequent  appeal,  and 
the  too  supine  resignation  of  our  understanding  to  antiquity."* 
Whosoever  proposes  an  alteration  of  existing  institutions  will 
meet,  from  some  men,  with  a  sort  of  instinctive  opposition,  which 
appears  to  be  influenced  by  no  process  of  reasoning,  by  no  con- 
siderations of  propriety  or  principles  of  rectitude,  which  defends 
the  existing  system  because  it  exists,  and  which  would  have 
equally  defended  its  opposite  if  that  had  been  the  oldest.  *'  Nor 
is  it  out  of  modesty  that  we  have  this  resignation,  or  that  we  do, 
in  truth,  think  those  who  have  gone  before  us  to  be  wiser  thati 

*Lord  Clarendon's  Essays. 


35 

ourselves  ;  we  are  as  proud  and  as  peevish  as  any  of  our  progeni 
tors ;  but  it  is  out  of  laziness ;  we  will  rather  take  their  words 
than  take  the  pains  to  examine  the  reason  they  govern  themselves 
by."*  To  those  who  urge  objections  from  the  authority  of  ages, 
it  is,  indeed,  a  sufficient  answer  to  say  that  they  apply  to  ever} 
long  continued  custom.  Slave-dealers  urged  them  against  the 
friends  of  the  abolition  ;  Papists  urged  them  against  Wickliffe 
and  Luther ;  and  the  Athenians  probably  thought  it  a  good 
objection  to  an  apostle,  that  "  he  seemed  to  be  a  setter  forth  of 
strange  gods." 

It  is  agreed  by  all  sober  moralists,  that  the  foundation  of  our 
duty  is  the  will  of  God,  and  that  his  will  is  to  be  ascertained  by 
the  Revelation  which  he  has  made.  To  Christianity,  therefore, 
we  refer  in  determination  of  this  great  question :  we  admit  no 
other  test  of  truth :  and  with  him  who  thinks  that  the  decisions 
of  Christianity  may  be  superseded  by  other  considerations,  we 
have  no  concern ;  we  address  not  our  argument  to  him,  but  leave 
him  to  find  some  other  and  better  standard,  by  which  to  adjust 
his  principles  and  regulate  his  conduct.  These  observations 
apply  to  those  objectors  who  loosely  say  that  "  wars  are  neces- 
sary ;"  for  supposing  the  Christian  religion  to  prohibit  war,  it  is 
preposterous,  and  irreverent  also,  to  justify  ourselves  in  supporting 
it,  because  "  it  is  necessary."  To  talk  of  a  divine  law  which 
must  be  disobeyed,  implies,  indeed,  such  a  confusion  of  moral  prin- 
ciples as  well  as  laxity  of  them,  that  neither  the  philosopher  nor 
the  Christian  are  required  to  notice  it.  But,  perhaps,  some  of 
those  who  say  that  wars  are  necessary,  do  not  very  accurately 
inquire  what  they  mean.  There  are  two  sorts  of  necessity — 
moral  and  physical ;  and  these,  it  is  probable,  some  men  are 
accustomed  to  iconfound.  That  there  is  any  physical  necessity 
for  war — that  people  cannot,  if  they  choose,  refuse  to  engage  in 
it.  no  one  will  maintain.  And  a  moral  necessity  to  perform  an 
action,  consists  only  in  the  prospect  of  a  certain  degree  of  evil  by 
refraining  from  it.  If,  then,  those  who  say  that  "  wars  are  neces- 
sary," mean  that  they  are  physically  necessary,  we  deny  it.  If 
they  mean  that  wars  avert  greater  evils  than  they  occasion,  we 
ask  for  proof.  Proof  has  never  yet  been  given  i  ?.TH!  even  if  we 

*  Lord  Clarendon's  Essays. 


36 

thought  that  we  possessed  such  proof,  \ve  should  still  be  referred 
to  the  primary  question — "  What  is  the  will  of  God  ?" 

It  is  some  satisfaction  to  be  able  to  give,  on  a  question  of  this 
nature,  the  testimony  of  some  great  minds  against  the  lawfulness 
of  war,  opposed  as  those  testimonies  are  to  the  general  prejudice 
and  the  general  practice  of  the  world.  It  has  been  observed  by 
Beccaria,  that  "  it  is  the  fate  of  great  truths,  to  glow  only  like  a 
flash  of  lightning  amidst  the  dark  clouds  in  which  error  has 
enveloped  the  universe :  and  if  our  testimonies  are  few  or  tran- 
sient, it  matters  not,  so  that  their  light  be  the  light  of  truth." 
There  are,  indeed,  many,  who  in  describing  the  horrible  particu- 
lars of  a  siege  or  a  battle,  indulge  in  some  declamations  on  the 
horrors  of  war,  such  as  has  been  often  repeated  and  often 
applauded,  and  as  often  forgotten.  But  such  declamations  are  of 
little  value  and  of  little  effect :  he  who  reads  the  next  paragraph 
finds,  probably,  that  he  is  invited  to  follow  the  path  to  glory  and 
to  victory — to  share  the  hero's  danger  and  partake  the  heroes  praise  ; 
and  he  soon  discovers  that  the  moralizing  parts  of  his  author  are 
the  impulse  of  feelings  rather  than  of  principles,  and  thinks  that 
though  it  may  be  very  well  to  write,  yet  it  is  better  to  forget 
them. 

There  are,  however,  testimonies,  delivered  in  the  calm  of 
reflection,  by  acute  and  enlightened  men,  which  may  reasonably 
be  allowed  at  least  so  much  weight,  as  to  free  the  present  inquiry 
from  the  charge  of  being  wild  or  visionary.  Christianity  indeed 
needs  no  such  auxiliaries ;  but  if  they  induce  an  examination  of 
her  duties,  a  wise  man  will  not  wish  them  to  be  disregarded. 

"  They  who  defend  war,"  says  Erasmus,  "  must  defend  the  dis- 
positions which  lead  to  war ;  and  these  dispositions  are  absolutely 
forbidden  by  the  gospel. — Since  the  time  that  Jesus  Christ  said, 
"  Put  up  thy  sword  into  its  scabbard,"  Christians  ought  not  to  go 
to  war. — Christ  suffered  Peter  to  fall  into  an  error  in  this  matter, 
on  purpose  that,  when  he  had  put  up  Peter's  sword,  it  might 
remain  no  longer  a  doubt  that  war  was  prohibited,  which,  before 
that  order,  had  been  considered  as  allowable." — "I  am  persuaded.'' 
says  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff,  "  that  when  the  spirit  of  Christianity 
shall  exert  its  proper  influence  over  the  minds  of  individuals,  and 
especially  over  the  minds  of  public  men  in  their  public  capaci- 
ties, over  the  minds  of  men  constituting  the  councils  of  princes, 


37 

from  whence  are  the  issues  of  peace  and  war — when  this  happy 
period  shall  arrive,  war  will  cease  throughout  the  whole  Christian 
world.*  "  War,"  says  the  same  acute  prelate,  "  has  practices  and 
principles  peculiar  to  itself,  which  but  ill  quadrate  with  the  rule  oj 
moral  rectitude,  and  are  quite  abhorrent  from  the  benignity  of 
Christianity."^  The  emphatic  declaration  which  I  have  already 
quoted  for  another  purpose,  is  yet  more  distinct.  The  prohibition 
of  war  by  our  Divine  Master,  is  plain,  literal,  and  undeniable.  J 
Dr.  Vicesimus  Knox  speaks  in  language  equally  specific : — 
"  Morality  and  religion  forbid  war  in  its  motives,  conduct,  and 
<  onsequences"§ 

In  an  inquiry  into  the  decisions  of  Christianity  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  war,  -we  have  to  refer — to  the  general  tendency  of  the 
revelation ;  to  the  individual  declarations  of  Jesus  Christ ;  to  his 
practice  ;  to  the  sentiments  and  practices  of  his  commissioned 
followers ;  to  the  opinions  respecting  its  lawfulness  which  were 
held  by  their  immediate  converts ;  and  to  some  other  species  of 
Christian  evidence. 

It  is,  perhaps,  the  capital  error  of  those  who  have  attempted  to 
instruct  others  in  the  duties  of  morality,  that  they  have  not  been 
willing  to  enforce  the  rules  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  in  their 
full  extent.  Almost  every  moralist  pauses  somewhere  short  of 
the  point  which  they  prescribe ;  and  this  pause  is  made  at  a 
greater  or  less  distance  from  the  Christian  standard,  in  proportion 
to  the  admission,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  of  principles  which 
they  have  superadded  to  the  principles  of  the  gospel.  Few,  how- 
ever, supersede  the  laws  of  Christianity,  without  proposing  some 
principle  of  "  expediency,"  some  doctrine  of  "  natural  law,"  some 
theory  of  "  intrinsic  decency  and  turpitude,"  which  they  lay  down 
as  the  true  standard  of  moral  judgment. — They  who  reject  truth 
are  not  likely  to  escape  error.  Having  mingled  with  Christianity 
principles  which  it  never  taught,  we  are  not  likely  to  be  con- 
sistent with  truth,  or  with  ourselves ;  and  accordingly,  he  who 
seeks  for  direction  from  the  professed  teachers  of  morality  finds 
his  mind  bewildered  in  conflicting  theories,  and  his  judgment 
embarrassed  by  contradictory  instructions.  But  ''wisdom  is  justi- 
fied by  all  her  children  ;"  and  she  is  justified,  perhaps,  by  nothing 

*  Life  of  Bp.  Watson.        flbid.       {  Southey's  Hist,  of  Brazil.       $  Essays. 


more  evidently  than  by  the  laws  which  she  has  imposed ;  for  all 
who  have  proposed  any  standard  of  rectitude,  other  than  that 
which  Christianity  has  laid  down,  or  who  have  admixed  any 
foreign  principles  \vith  the  principles  which  she  teaches,  have 
hitherto  proved  that  they  have  only  been  "  sporting  themselves 
with  their  own  deceivings."* 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  laws  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation, 
which  confessedly  was  an  imperfect  system,  are  laid  down  clearly 
and  specifically  in  the  form  of  an  express  code  ;  whilst  those  of 
that  purer  religion  which  Jesus  Christ  introduced  into  the  world, 
are  only  to  be  found,  casually  and  incidentally  scattered,  as  it 
were,  through  a  volume — intermixed  with  other  subjects — elicited 
by  unconnected  events — delivered  at  distant  periods,  and  for 
distant  purposes,  in  narratives,  in  discourses,  in  conversations,  in 
letters.  Into  the  final  purpose  of  such  an  ordination  (for  an 
ordination  it  must  be  supposed  to  be.)  it  is  not  our  present  busi- 
ness to  inquire.  One  important  truth,  however,  results  from  the 
fact  as  it  exists : — that  those  who  would  form  a  general  estimate 
of  the  moral  obligations  of  Christianity,  must  derive  it,  not  fron? 
codes,  but  from  principles ;  not  from  a  multiplicity  of  directions  in 
what  manner  we  are  to  act,  but  from  instructions  respecting  the 
motives  and  dispositions  by  which  all  actions  are  to  be  regulated,  f 

It  appears,  therefore,  to  follow,  that  in  the  inquiry  whether  war 
is  sanctioned  by  Christianity,  a  specific  declaration  of  its  decision 
is  not  likely  to  be  found.  If,  then,  we  be  asked  for  a  prohibition 
of  war  by  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  express  term  of  a  command,  in  the 
manner  in  which  Thou  shalt  not  kill  is  directed  to  murder,  we 
willingly  answer  that  no  such  prohibition  exists : — and  it  is  not 
necessary  to  the  argument.  Even  those  who  would  require  such 
a  prohibition,  are  themselves  satisfied  respecting  the  obligation  of 
many  negative  duties,  on  which  there  has  been  no  specific  deci- 

*  "  Even  thinking  men,  bewildered  by  the  various  and  contradictory  systems  of 
moral  judgment  adopted  by  different  ages  and  nations,  have  doubted  the  existence 
of  any  real  and  permanent  standard,  and  have  considered  it  as  the  mere  creature 
of  habit  and  education. "J — How  has  the  declaration  been  verified — "  I  will  destroy 
the  wisdom  of  the  wise  !" 

f  I  refer,  of  course,  to  those  questions  of  morality  which  are  not  specifically 
decided. 

J  Murray's  Inquiries  resnecting  the  ProgresB  of  Society. 


39 

sion  in  the  New  Testament.  They  believe  that  suicide  is  not 
lawful.  Yet  Christianity  never  forbade  it.  It  can  be  shown, 
indeed,  by  implication  and  inference,  that  suicide  could  not 
have  been  allowed,  and  with  this  they  are  satisfied.  Yet  there  is, 
probably,  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  not  a  twentieth  part  of  as 
much  indirect  evidence  against  the  lawfulness  of  suicide,  as  there 
is  against  the  lawfulness  of  war.  To  those  who  require  such  a 
command  as  Thou  shall  not  engage  in  war,  it  is  therefore,  sufficient 
to  reply,  that  they  require  that  which,  upon  this  and  upon  many 
other  subjects,  Christianity  has  not  chosen  to  give. 

We  refer  then,  first,  to  the  general  nature  of  Christianity, 
because  we  think  that,  if  there  were  no  other  evidence  against 
the  lawfulness  of  war,  we  should  possess,  in  that  general  nature, 
sufficient  proof  that  it  is  virtually  forbidden. 

That  the  whole  character  and  spirit  of  our  religion  are  emi- 
nently and  peculiarly  peaceful,  and  that  it  is  opposed,  in  all  its 
principles,  to  carnage  and  devastation,  cannot  be  disputed. 

Have  peace  one  with  another.  By  this  shall  all  men  know  that  ye 
are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have  love  one  to  another. 

Walk  with  all  lowliness  and  meekness,  with  long-suffering,  for- 
bearing one  another  in  love. 

Be  ye  all  of  one  mind,  having  compassion  one  of  another ;  love  as 
brethren,  be  pitiful,  be  courteous,  not  rendering  evil  for  evil,  or  rail- 
ing for  r a  ding. 

Be  at  peace,  among  yourselves.  See  that  none  render  evil  for  evil 
to  any  man. — God  hath  called  us  to  peace. 

Follow  after  love,  patience,  meekness. — Be  gentle,  showing  all 
meekness  unto  all  men. — Live  in  peace. 

Lay  aside  all  malice. — Pat  off  anger,  wrath,  malice. — Let  all 
bitterness,  and  wrath,  and  anger,  and  clamor,  and  evil  speaking  be 
put  away  from  you,  with  all  malice. 

Avenge  not  yourselves. — If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him;  if  he 
thirst,  give  him  drink. — Recompense  to  no  man  evil  for  evil — Over- 
come evil  with  good. 

Now  we  ask  of  any  man  who  looks  over  these  passages,  what 
evidence  do  they  convey  respecting  the  lawfulness  of  war? 
Could  any  approval  or  allowance  of  it  have  been  subjoined  tc 
these  instructions,  without  obvious  and  most  gross  inconsistency  ? 
But  if  war  is  obviously  and  most  grossly  inconsistent  with  the 


general  character  of  Christianity — if  war  could  not  have  been 
permitted  by  its  teachers,  without  any  egregious  violation  of  their 
precepts,  we  think  that  the  evidence  of  its  unlawfulness,  arising 
from  this  general  character  alone,  is  as  clear,  as  absolute,  and  as 
exclusive  as  could  have  been  contained  in  any  form  of  prohibition 
whatever. 

To  those  solemn,  discriminative,  and  public  declarations  of 
Jesus  Christ,  which  are  contained  in  the  "  sermon  on  the  mount,'* 
a  reference  will  necessarily  be  made  upon  this  great  question ; 
and,  perhaps,  more  is  to  be  learnt  from  these  declarations,  of  the 
moral  duties  of  his  religion,  than  from  any  other  part  of  his  com- 
munications to  the  world.  It  should  be  remarked,  in  relation  to 
the  injunctions  which  follow,  that  he  repeatedly  refers  to  that  less 
pure  and  less  peaceable  system  of  morality  which  the  law  ot 
Moses  had  inculcated,  and  contradistinguishes  it  from  his  own. 

"  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  but  /  say  unto  you  that  ye  resist  not  evil ;  but 
whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the 
other  also." — <%  Ye  have  heard  that  it  Jiath  been  said.  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor,  and  hate  thine  enemy ;  but  /  say  unto  you, 
Love  your  enemies ;  bless  them  that  curse  you  ;  do  good  to  them 
that  hate  you ;  and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use  you  and 
persecute  you ;  for  if  ye  love  them  only  which  love  you,  what 
reward  have  ye  ?"* 

There  is  an  extraordinary  emphasis  in  the  form  of  these  prohi- 
bitions and  injunctions.  They  are  not  given  in  an  insulated 
manner.  They  inculcate  the  obligations  of  Christianity  as 
peculiar  to  itself.  The  previous  system  of  retaliation  is  introduced 
for  the  purpose  of  prohibiting  it,  arid  of  distinguishing  more 
clearly  and  forcibly  the  pacific  nature  of  the  new  dispensation. 

Of  the  precepts  from  the  mount,  the  most  obvious  characteristic 
is  greater  moral  excellence  and  superior  purity.  They  are 
directed,  not  so  immediately  to  the  external  regulation  of  the 
conduct,  as  to  the  restraint  and  purification  of  the  affections.  In 
another  precept,f  it  is  not  enough  that  an  unlawful  passion  be 
just  so  far  restrained  as  to  produce  no  open  immorality — the 
passion  itself  is  forbidden.  The  tendency  of  the  discourse  is  to 

f  Matt.  v.  28. 


41 

attach  guilt,  not  to  action  only,  but  also  to  thought.  "  It  has  *,err, 
said,  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  and  whosoever  shall  kill,  shall  be  in 
danger  of  the  judgment ;  but  /  say,  that  whosoever  is  angry  with 
his  brother  without  a  cause,  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment."* 
Our  lawgiver  attaches  guilt  to  some  of  the  violent  feelings,  such 
as  resentment,  hatred,  revenge  ;  and  by  doing  this,  we  contend 
that  he  attaches  guilt  to  war.  War  cannot  be  carried  on  without 
these  passions  which  he  prohibits.  Our  argument,  therefore,  is 
syllogistical.  War  cannot  be  allowed,  if  that  which  is  necessary 
to  war  is  prohibited. 

It  was  sufficient  for  the  law  of  Moses,  that  men  maintained 
love  towards  their  neighbours ;  towards  an  enemy  they  were  at 
liberty  to  indulge  rancour  and  resentment.  But  Christianity  says, 
"  If  ye  love  them  only  which  love  you,  what  reward  have  ye  ? — . 
Love  your  enemies."  Now  what  sort  of  love  does  that  man  bear 
towards  his  enemy,  who  runs  him  through  with  a  bayonet  ?  We 
contend  that  the  distinguishing  duties  of  Christianity  must  be 
sacrificed  when  war  is  carried  on.  The  question  is  between  the 
abandonment  of  these  duties  and  the  abandonment  of  war,  for 
both  cannot  be  retained,  f 

It  is,  however,  objected  that  the  prohibitions,  "  Resist  not  evil," 
&c.,  are  figurative  ;  and  that  they  do  not  mean  that  no  injury  is 
to  be  punished,  and  no  outrage  to  be  repelled.  It  has  been  asked, 
with  complacent  exultation,  what  would  these  advocates  of  peace 
say  to  him  who  struck  them  on  the  right  cheek  ?  Would  they 
turn  to  him  the  other  ?  What  would  these  patient  moralists  say 
to  him  who  robbed  them  of  a  coat  ?  Would  they  give  him  a 
cloak  also?  What  would  these  philanthropists  say  to  him  who 
asked  them  to  lend  a  hundred  pounds?  Would  they  not  turn 
away?  This  is  argumentum  ad  hominem  ;  one  example  amongst 
the  many,  of  that  lowest  and  most  dishonest  of  all  modes  of 
intellectual  warfare,  which  consists  in  exciting  the  feelings  in- 
stead of  convincing  the  understanding.  It  is,  however,  some 

*  Matt.  v.  22. 

f  Yet  the  retention  of  both  has  been,  unhappily  enough,  attempted.  In  a  late 
publication,  of  v/liich  part  is  devoted  to  the  defence  of  war.  the  author  gravely 
recommends  soldiers,  whilst  shooting  and  stabbing  their  enemies,  to  maintain 
towards  them  a  feeling  of  "good  will/' — Tracts  and  Essays,  by  the  late  William 
Hey,  Esq.,  F.  R.  8. 

6 


satisfaction,  that  the    motive    to  the    adoption  of   this  mode  of 
warfare  is  itself  an  evidence  of  a  bad  cause,  for  what  honest 
reasoner  would  produce  only  a  laugh,  if  he  were  able  to  produce 
conviction  ?     But  I  must  ask,  .11  my  turn,  what  do  these  objectors 
say  is  the  meaning  of  the  precepts  ?     What  is  the  meaning  of 
'•  resist  not  evil  ?"     Does  it  mean  to  allow  bombardment,  devasta- 
tion, murder  ?     If  it  does  not  mean  to  allow  all  this,  it  does  not 
mean  to  allow  war.     What  again  do  the  objectors  say  is  the 
meaning  of  "  love  your  enemies,"  or  of  "  do  good  to  them  that 
hate  you?"     Does  it  mean  "ruin  their  commerce" — "sink  their 
fleets  " — "  plunder  their  cities " — "  shoot  through  their  hearts  ?"     If 
the  precept  does  not  mean  all  this,  it  does  not  mean  war.     We 
are,  then,  not  required  to  define  what  exceptions  Christianity  may 
admit  to  the  application  of  some  of  the  precepts  from  the  mount ; 
since,  whatever  exceptions  she  may  allow,  it  is  manifest  what 
she  does  not  allow:   for  if  we  give  to  our  objectors  whatever 
license  of  interpretation  they  may  desire,  they  cannot,  either  by 
honesty  or  dishonesty,  so  interpret  the  precepts  as  to  make  them 
allow  war.     I  would,  however,  be  far  from  insinuating  that  we 
are  left  without  any  means  of  determining  the  degree  and  kind  of 
resistance,  which,  in  some  cases,  is  lawful  ;  although  I  believe  no 
specification  of  it  can  be  previously  laid  down  :  for  if  the  precepts 
of  Christianity  had  been  multipled  a  thousand-fold,  there  would 
still  have  arisen  many  cases  of  daily  occurrence,  to  which  none 
of  them  would  precisely  have  applied.      Our  business,  then,  so  far 
as  written  rules  are  concerned,  is  in  all  cases  to  which  these  rules 
do  not  apply,  to  regulate  our  conduct  by  those  general  principles 
and  dispositions  which  our  religion  enjoins.     I  say,  so  far  as  writ- 
ten rules  are  concerned  /  for  "  if  any  man  lack  wisdom,"  and  these 
rules  do  not  impart  it,  "  let  him  ask  of  God."  * 

Of  the  injunctions  that  are  contrasted  with  "eye  for  eye,  and 
tooth  for  tooth,"  the  entire  scope  and  purpose  is  the  suppression 
of  the  violent  passions,  and  the  inculcation  of  forbearance,  and 

*  It  is  manifest,  from  the  New  Testament,  that  we  are  not  required  to  give  ' l  a 
cloak,"  in  every  case,  to  him  who  robs  us  of  "a  coat;  "  but  I  think  it  is  equally  mani- 
fest that  we  are  reqxiired  to  give  it  not  the  less  because  he  has  robbed  us.  The  cir- 
cumstance of  his  having  robbed  us  does  not  entail  an  obligation  to  give  ;  but  it  also 
does  not  impart  a  permission  to  withhold.  If  the  necessities  of  the  plunderer  require 
relief,  it  is  the  business  of  the  plundered  to  relieve  them. 


43 

forgiveness,  and  benevolence,  and  love.  They  forbid,  not  specifi- 
cally the  act,  but  the  spirit  of  war ;  and  this  method  of  prohibition 
Christ  ordinarily  employed.  He  did  not  often  condemn  the  indi- 
vidual doctrines  or  customs  of  the  age,  however  false  or  however 
vicious  ;  but  he  condemned  the  passions  by  which  only  vice  could 
exist,  and  inculcated  the  truth  which  dismissed  every  error.  And 
this  method  was  undoubtedly  wise.  In  the  gradual  alterations  of 
human  wickedness,  many  new  species  of  profligacy  might  arise 
which  the  world  had  not  yet  practised.  In  the  gradual  vicissi- 
tudes of  human  error,  many  new  fallacies  might  obtain  which  the 
world  hath  not  yet  held ;  and  how  were  these  errors  and  these 
crimes  to  be  opposed,  but  by  the  inculcation  of  principles  that 
were  applicable  to  every  crime  and  to  every  error  ? — principles 
which  tell  us  not  always  what  is  wrong,  but  which  tell  us  what 
always  is  right. 

There  are  two  modes  of  censure  or  condemnation ;  the  one  is 
to  reprobate  evil,  and  the  other  to  enforce  the  opposite  good ;  and 
both  these  modes  were  adopted  by  Christ  in  relation  to  war.  He 
not  only  censured  the  passions  that  are  necessary  to  Avar,  but  in- 
culcated the  affections  which  are  most  opposed  to  them.  The 
conduct  and  dispositions  upon  which  he  pronounced  his  solemn 
benediction,  are  exceedingly  remarkable.  They  are  these,  and 
in  this  order :  poverty  of  spirit — mourning — meekness — desire  of 
righteousness — mercy — purity  of  heart — peace-making — suffer- 
ance of  persecution.  Now  let  the  reader  try  whether  he  can 
propose  eight  other  qualities,  to  be  retained  as  the  general  habit 
of  the  mind,  which  shall  be  more  incongruous  with  war. 

Of  these  benedictions  I  think  the  most  emphatical  is  that  pro- 
nounced upon  the  peace-makers :  "  Blessed  are  the  peace-makers, 
for  they  shall  be  called  the  children  of  God."*  Higher  praise  or 
a  higher  title,  no  man  can  receive.  Now  I  do  not  say  that  these 
benedictions  contain  an  absolute  proof  that  Christ  prohibited  war, 
but  I  say  they  make  it  clear  that  he  did  not  approve  it.  He  se- 
lected a  number  of  subjects  for  his  solemn  approbation ;  and  not 
one  of  them  possesses  any  congruity  with  war,  and  some  of  them 
cannot  possibly  exist  in  conjunction  with  it.  Can  any  one  believe 
that  he  who  made  this  selection,  and  who  distinguish^  3  the 

*  Mat,1.,  v.  9. 


44 

makers  with  peculiar  approbation,  could  have  sanctioned  hig 
followers  in  murdering  one  another  ?  Or  does  any  one  believe 
that  those  who  were  mourners,  and  meek,  and  merciful,  and 
peace-making,  could  at  the  same  time  perpetrate  such  murder  ? 
If  I  be  told  that  a  temporary  suspension  of  Christian  dispositions, 
although  necessary  to  the  prosecution  of  war,  does  not  imply  the 
extinction  of  Christian  principles,  or  that  these  dispositions  may 
be  the  general  habit  of  the  mind,  and  may  both  precede  and 
follow  the  acts  of  war ;  I  answer  that  this  is  to  grant  all  that  I 
require,  since  it  grants  that  when  we  engage  in  war,  we  abandon 
Christianity. 

When  the  betrayers  and  murderers  of  Jesus  Christ  approached 
him,  his  followers  asked,  "  Shall  we  smite  with  the  sword  ?"  And 
without  waiting  for  an  answer,  one  of  them  d^ew  "  his  sword,  and 
smote  the  servant  of  the  high-priest,  and  cut  off  his  right  ear." — 
"Put  up  thy  sword  again  into  its  place/'  said  his  Divine  Master, 
"  for  all  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword."* 
There  is  the  greater  importance  in  the  circumstances  of  this  com- 
mand, because  it  prohibited  the  destruction  of  human  life  in  a 
cause  in  which  there  were  the  best  of  possible  reasons  for  de- 
stroying it.  The  question,  "  shall  we  smite  with  the  sword," 
obviously  refers  to  the  defence  of  the  Redeemer  from  his  assailants 
by  force  of  arms.  His  followers  were  ready  to  fight  for  him ;  and 
if  any  reason  for  fighting  could  be  a  good  one,  they  certainly  had 
it.  But  if,  in  defence  of  himself  from  the  hands  of  bloody  ruffians, 
his  religion  did  not  allow  the  sword  to  be  drawn,  for  what  reason 
can  it  be  lawful  to  draw  it  ?  The  advocates  of  war  are  at  least 
bound  to  show  a  better  reason  for  destroying  mankind,  than  is 
contained  in  this  instance  in  which  it  was  forbidden. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  said,  that  the  reason  why  Christ  did  not 
suffer  himself  to  be  defended  by  arms  was,  that  such  a  defence 
would  have  defeated  the  purpose  for  which  he  came  into  the 
world,  namely,  to  offer  up  his  life ;  and  that  he  himself  assigns 
this  reason  in  the  context.  He  does  indeed  assign  it;  but  the 
primary  reason,  the  immediate  context,  is — "  for  all  they  that  take 
the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword."  The  reference  to  the 
destined  sacrifice  of  his  life  is  an  after-reference.  This  destined 

Matt.  xxvi.  51,  52. 


45 

sacrifice  might,  perhaps,  have  formed  a  reason  why  iris  followers 
should  not  fight  then,  but  the  first,  the  principal  reason  which  he 
assigned,  was  a  reason  why  they  should  not  fight  at  all.  Nor  is 
it  necessary  to  define  the  precise  import  of  the  words  "  for  all 
they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword :"  since  it  is 
sufficient  for  us  all,  that  they  imply  reprobation. 

To  the  declaration  which  was  made  by  Jesus  Christ,  in  the 
conversation  that  took  place  between  himself  and  Pilate,  after  he 
had  been  seized  by  the  Jews,  I  would  peculiarly  invite  the  atten- 
tion  of  the  reader.  The  declaration  refers  specifically  to  an  armed 
conflict,  and  to  a  conflict  between  numbers.  In  allusion  to  the 
capability  of  his  followers  to  have  defended  his  person,  he  says, 
"  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world ;  if  my  kingdom  were  of  this 
world,  then  would  my  servants  fight;  that  I  should  not  be  delivered 
to  the  Jews :  but  now  is  my  kingdom  not  from  hence."*  He  had 
before  forbidden  his  "  servants*'  to  fight  in  his  defence,  and  now, 
before  Pilate,  he  assigns  the  reason  for  it :  "  my  kingdom  is  not 
of  this  world."  This  is  the  very  reason  which  we  are  urging 
against  war.  We  say  that  it  is  incompatible  with  his  kingdom — 
with  the  state  which  he  came  into  the  world  to  introduce.  The 
incompatibility  of  war  with  Christianity  is  yet  more  forcibly 
evinced  by  the  contrast  which  Christ  makes  between  his  kingdom 
and  others.  It  is  the  ordinary  practice  in  the  world  for  subjects 
to  "fight,"  and  his  subjects  would  have  fought  if  his  kingdom  had 
been  of  this  world ;  but  since  it  was  not  of  this  world, — since  its 
nature  was  purer  and  its  obligations  more  pacific, — therefore  they 
might  not  fight. 

His  declaration  referred,  not  to  the  act  of  a  single  individual 
who  might  draw  his  sword  in  individual  passion,  but  to  an  armjd 
engagement  between  hostile  parties ;  to  a  conflict  for  an  import- 
ant object,  which  one  party  had  previously  resolved  on  attaining, 
and  wrhich  the  other  were  ready  to  have  prevented  them  from 
attaining,  with  the  sword.  It  refers,  therefore,  strictly  to  a  conflict 
between  armed  numbers ;  and  to  a  conflict  which,  it  should  be 
remembered,  was  in  a  much  better  cause  than  any  to  which  we 
can  now  pretend,  f 

*  John  xviii.  36. 

f  In  the  publication  to  which  the  note,  page  37,  refers,  the  author  informs  us  that 
die  reason  why  Christ  forbade  his  followers  to  fight  in  his  defence,  was,  that  it 


46 

It  is  with  the  apostles  as  with  Christ  himself  The  incessant 
object  of  their  discourses  and  writings  is  the  inculcation  of  peace, 
of  mildness,  of  placability.  It  might  be  supposed  that  they  con- 
tinually retained  in  prospect  the  reward  which  would  attach  to 
c*  peace-makers."  We  ask  the  advocate  of  war,  whether  he  dis- 
covers in  the  writings  of  the  apostles,  or  of  the  evangelists,  any 
thing  that  indicates  they  approved  of  war.  Do  the  tenor  and 
spirit  of  their  writings  bear  any  congruity  with  it  ?  Are  not  their 
spirit  and  tenor  entirely  discordant  with  it  ?  We  are  entitled  to 
renew  the  observation,  that  the  pacific  nature  of  the  apostolic 
writings  proves  presumptively  that  the  writers  disallowed  war. 
That  could  not  be  allowed  by  them,  as  sanctioned  by  Christianity, 
which  outraged  all  the  principles  that  they  inculcated. 

'*  Whence  come  wars  and  fightings  amongst  you  ?"  is  the  inter- 
rogation of  one  of  the  apostles,  to  some  whom  he  was  reproving 
for  their  unchristian  conduct.  And  he  answers  himself  by  asking 
them,  "  come  they  not  hence,  even  of  your  lusts  that  war  in  your 
members  ?"*  This  accords  precisely  with  the  argument  that  we 
urge.  Christ  forbade  the  passions  which  lead  to  war ;  and  now, 
when  these  passions  had  broken  out  into  actual  fighting,  his 
r-postle,  in  condemning  war,  refers  it  back  to  their  passions.  We 
have  been  saying  that  the  passions  are  condemned,  and,  therefore, 
war ;  and  now,  again,  the  apostle  James  thinks,  like  his  Master, 
that  the  most  effectual  way  of  eradicating  war  is  to  eradicate  the 
passions  which  produce  it. 

In  the  following  quotation  we  are  told,  not  only  what  the  arms 
of  the  apostl  es  were  not,  but  what  they  were.  "  The  weapons  of  our 
warfare  are  not  carnal,  but  mighty,  through  God,  to  be  pulling 
down  of  strong  holds,  and  bringing  into  captivity  every  thought  to 
the  obedience  of  Christ."^  I  quote  this,  not  only  because  it  assures 
us  that  the  apostles  had  nothing  to  do  with  military  weapons,  but 
because  it  tells  us  the  object  of  their  warfare — the  bringing  every 
thought  to  the  obedience  of  Christ :  and  this  object  I  would  beg 
the  reader  to  notice,  because  it  accords  with  the  object  of  Christ 

would  have  been  to  oppose  the  government  of  the  country.  1  am  glad  no  bettei 
evasion  can  he  found  ;  and  this  would  not  have  been  found,  if  the  author  had  con 
the  reason  assigned  by  the  Prohibitor,  before  he  promulgated  his  own. 

*  James  iv.l.  f  2  Cor.  v.  4. 


47 

nimself  in  his  precepts  from  the  mount — the  reduction  3f  th« 
thoughts  to  obedience.  The  apostle  doubtless  knew  that,  if  he 
could  effect  this,  there  was  little  reason  to  fear  that  his  converts 
would  slaughter  one  another.  He  followed  the  example  of  his 
Master.  He  attacked  wickedness  in  its  root ;  and  inculcated 
those  general  principles  of  purity  and  forbearance,  which,  in  their 
prevalence,  would  abolish  war,  as  they  would  abolish  all  other 
crimes.  The  teachers  of  Christianity  addressed  themselves,  not 
to  communities,  but  men.  They  enforced  the  regulation  of  the 
passions  and  the  rectification  of  the  heart ;  and  it  was  probably 
clear  to  the  perceptions  of  the  apostles,  although  it  is  not  clear  to 
some  species  of  philosophy,  that  whatever  duties  were  binding 
upon  one  man,  were  binding  upon  ten,  upon  a  hundred,  and  upon 
the  state. 

War  is  not  often  directly  noticed  in  the  writings  of  the  apostles. 
When  it  is  noticed,  it  is  condemned  just  in  that  way  in  which  we 
should  suppose  any  thing  would  be  condemned,  that  was  notori- 
ously opposed  to  the  whole  system — just  as  murder  is  condemned 
at  the  present  day.  Who  can  find,  in  modern  books,  that  murder 
is  formally  censured  ?  We  may  find  censures  of  its  motives,  of 
its  circumstances,  of  its  degrees  of  atrocity ;  but  the  act  itself  no 
one  thinks  of  censuring,  because  every  one  knows  that  it  is  wicked. 
Setting  statutes  aside,  I  doubt  whether,  if  an  Otaheitan  should 
choose  to  argue  that  Christians  allow  murder  because  he  cannot 
find  it  formally  prohibited  in  their  writings,  we  should  not  be  at 
a  loss  to  find  direct  evidence  against  him.  And  it  arises,  perhaps, 
from  the  same  causes,  that  a  formal  prohibition  of  war  is  not  to 
be  found  in  the  writings  of  the  apostles.  I  do  not  believe  they 
imagined  that  Christianity  would  ever  be  charged  with  allowing 
it.  They  write  as  if  the  idea  of  such  a  charge  never  occurred  to 
them.  They  did,  nevertheless,  virtually  forbid  it ;  unless  any  one 
shall  say  that  they  disallowed  the  passions  which  occasion  war, 
but  did  not  disallow  war  itself;  that  Christianity  prohibits  the 
cause,  but  permits  the  effect ;  which  is  much  the  same  as  to  say 
that  a  law  which  forbade  the  administering  of  arsenic,  did  not 
forbid  poisoning. — And  this  sort  of  reasoning,  strange  and  illogi- 
cal as  it  is,  we  shall  by  and  by  find  has  been  gravely  adopted 
against  us. 

But  although  the  general  tenor  of  Christianity,  and  many  of  its 


48 

direct  precepts,  appear  to  me  to  condemn  and  disallow  war,  it  i« 
certain  that  different  conclusions  have  been  formed ;  and  many, 
who  are  undoubtedly  desirous  of  performing  the  duties  of  Christi 
anity,  have  failed  to  perceive  that  war  is  unlawful  to  them. 

In  examining  the  arguments  by  which  war  is  defended, 
two  important  considerations  should  be  borne  in  mind — first,  that 
those  who  urge  thtj,m,  are  not  simply  defending  war,  they  are  also 
defending  themselves.  If  war  be  wrong,  their  conduct  is  wrong , 
and  the  desire  of  self  justification  prompts  them  to  give  impor- 
tance to  whatever  arguments  they  can  advance  in  its  favour., 
Their  decisions  may  therefore,  with  reason,  be  regarded  as  in 
some  degree  the  decisions  of  a  party  in  the  cause.  The  other 
consideration  is,  that  the  defenders  of  war  come  to  the  discussion 
prepossessed  in  its  favour.  They  are  attached  to  it  by  their 
earliest  habits.  They  do  not  examine  the  question  as  a  philo- 
soptit/i  *\mld  examine  it,  to  whom  the  subject  was  new.  Their 
OT>:mo7;s  had  been  already  formed.  They  are  discussing  a  ques- 
tion which  they  had  already  determined.  And  every  man,  who 
is  acquainted  with  the  effects  of  evidence  on  the  mind,  knows 
that  under  these  circumstances,  a  very  slender  argument  in  favour 
of  the  previous  opinions  possesses  more  influence  than  many 
great  ones  against  it.  Now  all  this  cannot  be  predicated  of  the 
advocates  of  peace ;  they  are  opposing  the  influence  of  habit — 
they  are  contending  against  the  general  prejudice — they  are, 
perhaps,  dismissing  their  own  previous  opinions.  And  I  would 
submit  it  to  the  candour  of  the  reader,  that  these  circumstances 
ought  to  attach  in  his  mind,  suspicion  to  the  validity  of  the  argu- 
ments against  us. 

The  narrative  of  the  centurion  who  came  to  Jesus  at  Caper- 
naum, to  solicit  him  to  heal  his  servant,  furnishes  one  of  these 
arguments.  It  is  said  that  Christ  found  no  fault  with  the  centu- 
rion's profession  ;  that  if  he  had  disallowed  the  military  character, 
he  would  have  taken  this  opportunity  of  censuring  it ;  and  that, 
instead  of  such  censure,  he  highly  commended  the  officer,  and 
paid  of  him,  "  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel."* 

An  obvious  weakness  in  this  argument  is  this;  that  it  is 
fouakd,  not  upon  approval,  but  upon  silence.  Approbation  is 

*Matt.viii.  10. 


49 

indeed  expressed,  but  it  is  directed,  not  to  his  arms,  but  to  his 
faith ;  and  those  who  will  read  the  narrative  will  find  that  no 
occasion  was  given  for  noticing  his  profession.  He  came  tc 
Christ,  not  as  a  military  officer,  but  simply  as  a  deserving  man. 
A  censure  of  his  profession  might,  undoubtedly,  have  been  pro- 
nounced, but  it  would  have  been  a  gratuitous  censure,  a  censure 
that  did  not  naturally  arise  out  of  the  case.  The  objection  is  in 
its  greatest  weight  presumptive  only,  for  none  can  be  supposed  to 
countenance  every  thing  that  he  does  not  condemn.  To  observe 
silence*  in  such  cases,  was,  indeed,  the  ordinary  practice  of  Christ. 
He  very  seldom  interfered  with  the  civil  and  political  institutions 
of  the  world.  Iu  these  institutions  there  was  sufficient  wickedness 
around  him,  but  some  of  them,  flagitious  as  they  were,  he  never, 
on  any  occasion,  even  noticed.  His  mode  of  condemning  and 
extirpating  political  vices  was  by  the  inculcation  of  general  rules 
of  purity,  which,  in  their  eventual  and  universal  application, 
would  reform  them  all. 

But  how  happens  it  that  Christ  did  not  notice  the  centurion's 
religion  ?  He  surely  was  an  idolater.  And  is  there  not  as  good 
reason  for  maintaining  that  Christ  approved  idolatry,  because  he 
did  not  condemn  it,  as  that  he  approved  war  because  he  did  not 
condemn  it  ?  Reasoning  from  analogy,  we  should  conclude  that 
idolatry  was  likely  to  have  been  noticed  rather  than  war  ;  and  it 
is  therefore  peculiarly  and  singularly  unapt  to  bring  forward  the 
silence  respecting  war  as  an  evidence  of  its  lawfulness. 

A  similar  argument  is  advanced  from  the  case  of  Cornelius,  to 
whom  Peter  was  sent  from  Joppa;  of  which  it  is  said,  that 
although  the  gospel  was  imparted  to  Cornelius  by  the  especial 
direction  of  Heaven,  yet  we  do  not  find  that  he  therefore  quitted 
his  profession,  or  that  it  was  considered  inconsistent  with  his  new 
character.  The  objection  applies  to  this  argument  as  to  the  last, 
that  it  is  built  upon  silence,  that  it  is  simply  negative.  We  do 
not  find  that  he  quitted  the  service  : — I  might  answer,  Neither  do 
we  find  that  he  continued  in  it.  We  only  know  nothing  of  the 
matter :  and  the  evidence  is  therefore  «*o  much  less  than  proof, 
as  silence  is  less  than  approbation.  Yet,  thai  the  account  is 
silent  respecting  any  disapprobation  of  war,  might  have  been  a 


*  See  a  future  quotation  from  the  "  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy/ 

7 


50 

reasonable  ground  of  argument  under  different  circumstances. 
It  might  have  been  a  reasonable  ground  of  argument,  if  the 
primary  object  of  Christianity  had  been  the  reformation  of  political 
institutions,  or,  perhaps,  even  if  her  primary  object  had  been  the 
regulation  of  the  external  conduct ;  but  her  primary  object  was 
neither  of  these.  She  directed  herself  to  the  reformation  of  the 
heart,  knowing  that  all  other  reformation  would  follow.  She 
embraced  indeed  both  morality  and  policy,  and  has  reformed  or 
will  reform  both — not  so  much  immediately  as  consequently ;  not 
so  much  by  filtering  the  current,  as  by  purifying  the  spring.  The 
silence  of  Peter,  therefore,  in  the  case  of  Cornelius,  will  serve  the 
cause  of  war  but  little ;  that  little  is  diminished  when  urged 
against  the  positive  evidence  of  commands  and  prohibitions,  and 
it  is  reduced  to  nothingness,  when  it  is  opposed  to  the  universal 
tendency  and  object  of  the  revelation. 

It  has  sometimes  been  urged  that  Christ  paid  taxes  to  the 
Roman  government  at  a  time  when  it  was  engaged  in  war,  and 
when,  therefore,  the  money  that  he  paid  would  be  employed  in 
its  prosecution.  This  we  shall  readily  grant;  but  it  appears  to 
be  forgotten  by  our  opponents,  that,  if  this  proves  war  to  be  law- 
ful, they  are  proving  too  much.  These  taxes  were  thrown  into 
the  exchequer  of  the  state,  and  a  part  of  the  money  was  applied 
to  purposes  of  a  most  iniquitous  and  shocking  nature ;  sometimes 
probably  to  the  gratification  of  the  emperor's  personal  vices  and 
to  his  gladiatorial  exhibitions,  &c.,  and  certainly  to  the  support  of 
a  miserable  idolatry.  If,  therefore,  the  payment  of  taxes  to  such 
a  government  proves  an  approbation  of  wrar,  it  proves  an  appro- 
bation of  many  other  enormities.  Moreover,  the  argument  goes 
too  far  in  relation  even  to  war ;  for  it  must  necessarily  make 
Christ  approve  of  all  the  Roman  wars,  without  distinction  of  their 
justice  or  injustice — of  the  most  ambitious,  the  most  atrocious, 
and  the  most  aggressive ;  and  these  even  our  objectors  will  not 
defend.  The  payment  of  tribute  by  our  Lord  was  accordant  with 
his  usual  system  of  avoiding  to  interfere  in  the  civil  or  political 
institutions  of  the  world. 

"  Let  him  that  has  no  sword  sell  his  garment,  and  buy  one."* 
is  another  passage  that  is  brought  against  us.  "For  what 

*  Luke  xxii.  36. 


51 

purpose,"  it  is  asked,  were  they  to  buy  swords,  if  swords  might 
not  be  used  ?"  I  doubt  whether  with  some  of  those  who  advanced 
this  objection,  it  is  not  an  objection  of  words  rather  than  of  opinion . 
I  doubt  whether  they  themselves  think  there  is  any  weight  in  it. 
To  those,  however,  who  may  be  influenced  by  it,  I  would  observe, 
that,  as  it  appears  to  me,  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  objection  may 
be  found  in  the  immediate  context : — "  Lord,  behold  here  are  two 
swords,"  said  they  ;  and  he  immediately  answered,  "  It  is  enough." 
How  could  two  be  enough  when  eleven  were  to  be  supplied  wTith 
them  ?  That  swords,  in  the  sense  and  for  the  purpose  of  military 
weapons,  were  even  intended  in  this  passage,  there  appears  much 
reason  for  doubting.  This  reason  will  be  discovered  by  examining 
and  connecting  such  expressions  as  these:  "The  Son  of  man  is 
not  come  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save  them,"  said  our  Lord. 
Yet,  on  another  occasion,  he  says,  "  I  came  not  to  send  peace  on 
earth,  but  a  sword."  How  are  we  to  explain  the  meaning  of  the 
latter  declaration?  Obviously  by  understanding  "sword"  to 
mean  something  far  other  than  steel.  For  myself,  I  see  little 
reason  for  supposing  that  physical  weapons  were  intended  in  the 
instruction  of  Christ.  I  believe  they  were  not  intended,  partly 
because  no  one  can  imagine  his  apostles  were  in  the  hubit  of 
using  such  arms,  partly  because  they  declared  that  the  weapons 
of  their  warfare  were  not  carnal,  and  partly  because  the  word 
"  sword"  is  often  used  to  imply  "  dissension,"  or  the  religious  war- 
fare of  the  Christian.  Such  a  use  of  language  is  found  in  the 
last  quotation ;  and  it  is  found  also  in  such  expressions  as  these ; 
"  shield  of  faith"—"  helmet  of  salvation"—"  sword  of  the  Spirit"— 
"I  have  fought  the  good  fight  of  faith." 

Tut  it  will  be  said  that  the  apostles  did  provide  themselves 
with  swords,  for  that  on  the  same  evening  they  asked.  "  shall  we 
smite  with  the  sword?"  This  is  true,  and  I  think  it  may  probably 
be  true  also,  that  some  of  them  provided  themselves  with  swords 
in  consequence  of  the  injunction  of  their  Master.  But  what  then  ? 
The  reader  of  the  New  Testament  will  find  that  hitherto  the 
destined  teachers  of  Christianity  were  very  imperfectly  acquainted 
with  the  nature  of  their  Master's  religion — their  conceptions  of  it 
were  vet  gross  and  Jewish,  The  very  question  that  is  brought 
against  us,  and  the  succeeding  conduct  of  Peter,  evince  how  little 
tliey  yet  knew  that  His  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world,  and  that  his 


52 

servants  might  not  fight.  Even  after  the  resurrectipn,  they  seemed 
to  be  still  expecting  that  his  purpose  was  to  establish  a  temporal 
government,  by  the  inquiry — "  Lord,  wilt  thou  at  this  time  restore 
again  the  kingdom  unto  Israel  ?"*  Why  do  we  avail  ourselves  ot 
the  conduct  of  the  apostles,  before  they  themselves  knew  the 
duties  of  Christianity  ?  Why,  if  this  example  of  Peter  be  authority 
to  us,  do  we  not  approve  the  subsequent  example  of  this  same 
apostle,  in  denying  his  Master  ? 

Why,  indeed,  do  we  urge  the  conduct  of  Peter  at  all,  when  that 
conduct  was  immediately  condemned  by  Christ  ?  And,  had  it  not 
been  condemned,  how  happens  it,  that  if  he  allowed  his  followers 
the  use  of  arms,  he  healed  the  only  wound  which  we  find  they 
ever  inflicted  with  them  ? 

It  appears  to  me,  that  the  apostles  acted  on  this  occasion  upon 
the  principles  on  which  they  had  wished  to  act  on  another,  when 
they  asked,  "  Shall  we  command  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven 
to  consume  them  V  And  that  their  Master's  principles  of  action 
were  also  the  same  in  both — "Ye  know  not  what  manner  of 
spirit  ye  are  of;  for  the  Son  of  man  is  not  come  to  destroy  men's 
lives,  but  to  save  them."  This  is  the  language  of  Christianity ; 
and  I  would  seriously  invite  him  who  now  justifies  "  destroying 
men's  lives,"  to  consider  what  manner  of  spirit  he  is  of. 

I  think,  then,  that  no  argument  arising  from  the  instruction  to 
buy  swords  can  be  maintained.  This,  at  least,  we  know,  that 
when  the  apostles  were  completely  commissioned,  they  neither 
used  nor  possessed  them.  An  extraordinary  imagination  he  must 
have,  who  conceives  of  an  apostle,  preaching  peace,  and  recon- 
ciliation, crying,  "forgive  injuries" — "love  your  enemies" — "renaer 
not  evil  for  evil ;"  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  discourse,  if  he 
chanced  to  meet  with  violence  or  insult,  promptly  drawing  his 
sword,  and  maiming  or  murdering  the  offender.  We  insist  upon 
this  consideration.  If  swjrds  were  to  be  worn,  swords  were  to 
be  used ;  and  there  is  no  rational  way  in  which  they  could  have 
been  used,  but  some  such  as  that  which  we  have  been  supposing. 
If,  therefore,  the  words,  "  Let  him  that  has  no  sword  sell  his 
garment,  and  buy  one,"  do  not  mean  to  authorize  such  a  use  of  the 
^word,  they  do  not  mean  to  authorize  its  use  at  all :  And  those 

*  Acts  i.  6. 


53 

who  adduce  the  passage  must  allow  its  application  in  such  a 
sense,  or  they  must  exclude  it  from  any  application  to  their 
purpose. 

It  has  been  said,  again,  that  when  soldiers  came  to  John 
the  Baptist  to  inquire  of  him  what  they  should  do,  he  did  not 
direct  them  to  leave  the  service,  but  to  be  content  with  their 
wages.  This,  also,  is  at  best  but  a  negative  evidence.  It  does 
not  prove  that  the  military  profession  was  wrong,  and  it  certainly 
does  not  prove  that  it  was  right.  But  in  truth,  if  it  asserted 
the  latter,  Christians  have,  as  I  conceive,  nothing  to  do  with  it ; 
for  I  think  that  we  need  not  inquire  what  John  allowed,  or  whet 
he  forbade.  He,  confessedly,  belonged  to  that  system  which  re- 
quired "an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth;"  and  the 
observations  which  we  shall  by-and-by  make  on  the  authority  r.-5 
the  law  of  Moses,  apply,  therefore,  to  that  of  John  the  Baptist. 
Although  it  could  be  proved  (which  it  cannot  be)  that  he  allov^a 
wars,  he  acted  not  inconsistently  with  his  own  dispensation ;  and 
with  that  dispensation  we  have  no  business.  Yet,  if  any  one  st.il!. 
insists  upon  the  authority  of  John,  I  would  refer  him  for  an 
answer  to  Jesus  Christ  himself.  What  authority  He  attached  *o 
John  on  questions  relating  to  his  own  dispensation,  may  be 
learned  from  this — "  The  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater 
than  he." 

Such  are  the  arguments  which  are  adduced  from  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  by  the  advocates  of  war.  Of  these  arguments,  those 
derived  from  the  cases  of  the  centurion  and  of  Cornelius,  are 
simply  negative.  It  is  not  pretended  that  they  possess  proof. 
Their  strength  consists  in -silence,  and  of  this  silence  there  appears 
to  be  sufficient  explanation.  Of  the  objection  arising  from  the 
payment  of  tribute,  I  know  not  who  will  avail  himself.  It  is 
nullified  by  itself.  A  nearly  similar  observation  applies  to  the 
instruction  to  bay  swords ;  and  with  the  case  of  John  the  Baptist  I  do 
not  conceive  that  we  have  any  concern.  In  these  fiv©  passages, 
the  sum  of  the  New  Testament  evidences  in  favour  of  war 
unquestionably  consists :  they  are  the  passages  which  men  of 
acute  minds,  studiously  seeking  for  evidence,  have  selected.  And 
what  are  they  ?  There  is  not  one  of  them,  except  the  payment  of 
tribute  and  the  instruction  to  buy  swords,  of  which  it  is  even  said 
by  our  opponents  that  it  proves  any  thing  in  favour  of  war.  A 


54 

"NOT"  always  intervenes — the  centurion  was  not  found  fault 
with:  Cornelius  was  not  told  to  leave  the  profession:  John  did 
not  tell  the  soldiers  to  abandon  the  army.  I  cannot  forbear  to 
solicit  the  reader  to  compare  these  objections  with  the  pacific 
evidence  of  the  gospel  which  has  been  laid  before  him ;  I  would 
rather  say  to  compare  it  with  the  gospel  itself;  for  the  sum,  the 
tendency  of  the  whole  revelation  is  in  our  favour. 

In  an  inquiry  whether  Christianity  allows  of  war,  there  is  a  sub- 
ject that  always  appears  to  me  to  be  of  peculiar  importance — the 
prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  respecting  the  arrival  of  a  period 
of  universal  peace.  The  belief  is  perhaps  general  among  Chris- 
tians, that  a  time  will  come  when  vice  shall  be  eradicated  from 
the  world,  when  the  violent  passions  of  mankind  shall  be  repressed, 
*..nd  when  the  pure  benignity  of  Christianity  shall  be  universally  dif- 
HisKI.  That  such  a  period  will  come  we  indeed  know  assuredly, 
f^r  * :rod  has  promised  it. 

Of  the  many  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  respecting  it,  I 
v  II  refer  only  to  a  few  from  the  writings  of  Isaiah.  In  his  pre- 
dictions respecting  the  "  last  times,"  by  which  it  is  not  disputed 
that  he  referred  to  the  prevalence  of  the  Christian  religion,  the 
prophet  says. — "They  shall  beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares, 
and  their  spears  into  pruning-hooks ;  nation  shall  not  lift  the 
sword  against  nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more."* 
Again,  referring  to  the  same  period,  he  says, — "  They  shall  not 
hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain,  for  the  knowledge  of 
the  Lord  shall  cover  the  earth  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea."f 
And  again,  respecting  the  same  era, —  "Violence  shall  be  no  more 
heard  in  thy  land,  wasting  nor  'destruction  within  thy  borders."  J 

Two  things  are  to  be  observed  in  relation  to  these  prophecies : 
first,  that  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  war  should  eventually  be  abol- 
ished. This  consideration  is  of  importance,  for  if  war  be  not  ac- 
cordant with  Hi*?  will,  war  cannot  be  accordant  with  Christianity, 
which  is  the  revelation  of  His  will.  My  business,  however,  is 
principally  with  the  second  consideration — that  Christianity  will 
be  the  means  of  introducing  this  period  of  peace.  From  those  who 
say  that  our  religion  sanctions  war,  an  answer  mast  be  expected 
to  questions  such  as  these  : — By  what  instrumentality  and  by  the 

*  Isaiah  ii.4.  f  Ibid-  xi-  9-  1  HM.  lx-  18- 


55 

diffusion  of  what  principles,  will  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah  be  ful- 
filled ?  Are  we  to  expect  some  new  system  of  religion,  by  which 
the  imperfections  of  Christianity  shall  be  removed,  and  its  defi- 
ciencies supplied  ?  Are  we  to  believe  that  God  sent  his  only  Son 
into  the  world  to  institute  a  religion  such  as  this — a  religion  that, 
in  a  few  centuries,  would  require  to  be  altered  and  amended  ? 
If  Christianity  allows  of  war,  they  must  tell  us  what  it  is  that  is  to 
extirpate  war.  If  she  allows  "  violence,  and  wasting,  and  des- 
truction," they  must  tell  us  what  are  the  principles  that  are  to 
produce  gentleness,  and  benevolence,  and  forbearance. — I  know 
not  what  answer  such  inquiries  will  receive  from  the  advocate  of 
war,  but  I  know  that  Isaiah  says  the  change  will  be  effected  by 
Christianity  :  And  if  any  one  still  chooses  to  expect  another  and  a 
purer  system,  an  apostle  may  perhaps  repress  his  hopes : — "  If  we, 
or  an  angel  from  heaven,"  says  Paul,  "  preach  any  other  gospel 
than  that  which  we  have  preached  unto  you,  let  him  be  ac- 
cursed."* 

Whatever  the  principles  of  Christianity  will  require  hereafter, 
they  require  now.  Christianity,  with  its  present  principles  and  ob- 
ligations, is  to  produce  universal  peace.  It  becomes,  therefore,  an 
absurdity,  a  simple  contradiction,  to  maintain  that  the  principles 
of  Christianity  allow  of  war,  when  they,  and  they  only,  are  to 
eradicate  it.  If  we  have  no  other  guarantee  of  peace  than  the  ex 
istence  of  our  religion,  and  no  other  hope  of  peace  than  in  its  dif- 
fusion, how  can  that  religion  sanction  war  ?  The  conclusion  that 
it  does  not  sanction  it  appears  strictly  logical :  I  do  not  perceive 
that  a  demonstration  from  Euclid  can  be  clearer;  and  I  think 
that  if  we  possessed  no  other  evidence  of  the  unlawfulness  of  war, 
there  is  contained  in  this  a  proof  which  prejudice  cannot  deny, 
and  which  sophistry  cannot  evade. 

The  case  is  clear.  A  more  perfect  obedience  to  that  same  gos- 
pel which  we  are  told  sanctions  slaughter,  will  be  the  means,  and 
the  only  means,  of  exterminating  slaughter  from  the  world.  It  is 
not  from  an  alteration  of  Christianity,  but  from  an  assimilation  of 
Christians  to  its  nature,  that  we  are  to  hope.  It  is  because  we 
violate  the  principles  of  our  religion,  because  we  are  not  what 
they  require  us  to  be,  that  wars  are  continued.  If  we  will  not  be 

*  Gal.  i.  8. 


56 

peaceable,  let  us  then,  at  least,  be  honest,  and  acknowledge  that 
we  continue  to  slaughter  one  another,  not  because  Christianity 
permits  it,  but  because  we  reject  her  laws. 

The  Christian  ought  to  be  satisfied,  on  questions  connected  with 
his  duties,  by  the  simple  rules  of  his  religion.  If  those  rules  dis- 
allow war,  he  should  inquire  no  farther ;  but  since  I  am  willing  to 
give  conviction  to  the  reader  by  whatever  means,  and  since  truth 
carries  its  evidence  with  greater  force  from  accumulated  testi- 
mony. I  would  refer  to  two  or  three  other  subjects  in  illustration 
of  our  principles,  or  in  confirmation  of  their  truth. 

The  opinions  of  the  earliest  professors  of  Christianity  upon  the 
lawfulness  of  war  are  of  importance  ;  because  they  who  lived 
nearest  to  the  time  of  its  Founder  were  the  most  likely  to  be  in- 
formed of  his  intentions  and  his  will,  and  to  practise  them  with- 
out those  adulterations  which  we  know  have  been  introduced  by 
the  lapse  of  ages. 

During  a  considerable  period  after  the  death  of  Christ,  it  is  cer- 
tain, then,  that  his  followers  believed  he  had  forbidden  war,  and 
.hat,  in  consequence  of  this  belief,  many  of  them  refused  to  en- 
gage in  it;  whatever  were  the  consequences,  whether  reproach, 
or  imprisonment,  or  death.  These  facts  are  indisputable  :  "  It  is 
as  easy,"  says  a  learned  writer  of  the  seventeenth  century,  "  to 
obscure  the  sun  at  mid-day,  as  to  deny  that  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians renounced  all  revenge  and  war."  Of  all  the  Christian  wri- 
ters of  the  second  century,  there  is  not  one  who  notices  the  sub- 
ject, who  does  not  hold  it  to  be  unlawful  for  a  Christian  to  bear 
arms  ;  "  and,"  says  Clarkson,  "  it  was  not  till  Christianity  became 
corrupted,  that  Christians  became  soldiers."* 

Our  Saviour  inculcated  mildness  and  peaceableness  ;  we  have 
seen  that  the  apostles  imbibed  his  spirit,  and  followed  his  exam- 
ple ;  and  the  early  Christians  pursued  the  example  and  imbibed 
the  spirit  of  both.  "  This  sacred  principle,  this  earnest  recom 
mendation  of  forbearance,  lenity,  and  forgiveness,  mixes  with  all 
the  writings  of  that  age.  There  are  more  quotations  in  the  apos- 
tolical fathers,  of  texts  which  relate  to  these  points  than  of  any 

*  "  Essays  on  the  Doctrines  and  Practice  of  the  Early  Christians  as  they  relate 
to  War."  To  this  Essay  I  am  indebted  for  much  information  on  the  present  pan 
of  our  subject. 


57 

other.  Christ's  sayings  had  struck  them.  Nol  rendering,  says 
Polycarp  the  disciple  of  John,  evil  for  evil,  or  railing  for  railing 
or  striking  for  striking,  or  cursing  for  cursing." -\  Citrist  and  his 
apostles  delivered  general  precepts  for  the  regulation  of  our  con- 
duct. It  was  necessary  for  their  successors  to  apply  them  to  their 
practice  in  life.  And  to  what  did  they  apply  the  pacific  precepts 
which  had  been  delivered?  They  applied  them  to  war:  they 
were  assured  that  the  precepts  absolutely  forbade  it.  This  belief 
they  derived  from  those  very  precepts  on  which  we  have  insisted : 
They  referred  expressly  to  the  same  passages  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  from  the  authority  and  obligation  of  those  passages,  they 
refused  to  bear  arms.  A  few  examples  from  their  history  will 
show  with  what  undoubting  confidence  they  believed  in  the  un- 
lawfulness of  war,  and  how  much  they  were  willing  to  scuTer  in 
the  cause  of  peace. 

Maximilian,  as  it  is  related  in  the  Acts  of  Ruinart,  was  l>ro~j.g'lit 
before  the  tribunal  to  be  enrolled  as  a  soldier.  On  the  proconsul's 
asking  his  name,  Maximilian  replied,  "  I  am  a  Christian,  and  can- 
not fight."  It  was,  however,  ordered  that  he  should  be  enrolled,  hut 
he  refused  to  serve,  still  alleging  that  he  was  a  Christian.  He  was 
immediately  told  that  there  was  no  alternative  between  bearing 
arms  and  being  put  to  death.  But  his  fidelity  was  not  to  be  sha- 
ken,— "  I  cannot  fight,"  said  he,  "  if  I  die."  The  proconsul  asked 
who  had  persuaded  him  to  this  condu'ct ;  "  My  own  mind."  said  the 
Christian,  "  and  He  .who  has  called  me."  It  was  once  more  at- 
tempted to  shake  his  resolution  by  appealing  to  his  youth  and  to 
the  glory  of  the  profession,  but  in  vain  ; — "  I  cannot  fight."  said  he, 
"  for  any  earthly  consideration."  He  continued  steadfast  to  his 
principles,  sentence  was  pronounced  upon  him,  and  he  was  led  to 
execution. 

The  primitive  Christians  not  only  refused  to  be  enlisted  in  the 
army,  but  when  they  embraced  Christianity  whilst  already  enlist- 
ed, they  abandoned  the  profession  at  whatever  cost.  Marcellus 
was  a  centurion  in  the  legion  called  Trajana.  Whilst  holding 
this  commission  he  became  a  Christian,  and  believing,  in  common 
with  his  fellow  Christians,  that  war  was  no  longer  permitted  to 
him,  he  threw  down  his  belt  at  the  head  of  the  legion,  declaring 

f  Pol.  Ep.  and  Phil.  C.  2. — Evidences  of  Christianity. 

8 


58 

that  he  had  become  a  Christian,  and  that  he  woul  1  serve  no  Ion 
ger.  He  was  committed  to  prison  ;  but  he  was  still  faithful  to 
Christianity.  "  It  is  not  lawful,"  said  he,  "  for  a  Christian  to  bear 
arms  for  any  earthly  consideration  ;"  and  he  was  in  consequence 
put  to  death.  Almost  immediately  afterwards,  Cassian,  who  was 
notary  to  the  same  legion,  gave  up  his  office.  He  steadfastly  main- 
tained the  sentiments  of  Marcellus.  and  like  him  was  consigned  to 
the  executioner.  Martin,  of  whom  so  much  is  said  by  Sulpicius 
Severus,  was  bred  to  the  profession  of  arms,  which,  on  his  accept- 
ance of  Christianity,  he  abandoned.  To  Julian  the  apostate,  the 
~-nly  reason  that  we  find  he  gave  for  his  conduct  was  this, — "  I  am 
a  Christian,  and  therefore  I  cannot  fight."  The  answer  of  Tara- 
chus  to  Numerianus  Maximus  is  in  words  nearly  similar : — "  I 
hiAVf:  I~d  a  military  life,  and  am  a  Roman ;  and  because  I  am  a 
Chris'i'tn,  I  have  abandoned  my  profession  of  a  soldier." 

These  were  not  the  sentiments,  and  this  was  not  the  conduct, 
of  the  insulated  individuals  who  might  be  actuated  by  individual 
opidons,  or  by  their  private  interpretations  of  the  duties  of  Chris- 
tianity. Their  principles  were  the  principles  of  the  body.  They 
were  recognized  and  defended  by  the  Christian  writers  their  con- 
temporaries. Justin  Martyr  andTatian  talk  of  soldiers  and  Chris- 
tians as  distinct  characters;  andTatian  says  that  the  Christians  de- 
clined even  military  commands.  Clemens  of  Alexandria  calls  his 
Christian  contemporaries  the  "  Followers  of  Peace,"  and  expressly 
tells  us  that  "  the  followers  of  peace  used  none  of  the  implements 
of  war."  Lactantius,  another  early  Christian,  says  expressly,  ''It 
can  never  be  lawful  for  a  righteous  man  to  go  to  war."  About 
the  end  of  the  second  century,  Celsus,  one  of  the  opponents  of 
Christianity,  charged  the  Christians  with  refusing  to  bear  arms 
even  in  case  of  necessity.  Origen,  the  defender  of  the  Christians, 
does  not  think  of  denying  the  fact;  he  admits  the  refusal,  and  jus- 
tifies it,  because  war  was  unlawful.  Even  after  Christianity  had 
spread  over  almost  the  whole  of  the  known  world,  Tertullian, 
in  speaking  of  a  part  of  the  Roman  armies,  including  more  than 
one  third  of  the  standing  legions  of  Rome,  distinctly  informs  us  that 
"  not  a  Christian  could  be  found  amongst  them." 

All  this  is  explicit.  The  evidence  of  the  following  facts  is,  how- 
ever, yet  more  determinate  and  satisfactory.  Some  of  the  argu- 
ments which,  at  the  present  day,  are  brought  against  the  advo- 


59 

cates  of  peace,  were  then  urged  against  these  early  Christians  , 
and  these  arguments  they  examined  and  repelled.  This  indicates 
investigation  and  inquiry,  and  manifests  that  their  belief  of  the 
unlawfulness  of  war  was  not  a  vague  opinion,  hastily  admitted, 
and  loosely  floating  amongst  them  ;  but  that  it  was  the  result  of 
deliberate  examination,  and  a  consequent  firm  conviction  that 
Christ  had  forbidden  it.  Tertullian  says,  "  Though  the  soldiers 
came  to  John,  and  received  a  certain  form  to  be  observed,  yet  Je- 
sus Christ,  by  disarming  Peter,  disarmed  every  soldier  afterwards  ; 
for  custom  never  sanctions  any  unlawful  act."  "Can  a  soldier's 
life  be  lawful,"  says  he  in  another  work,  "  when  Christ  has  pro- 
nounced that  he  who  lives  by  the  sword  shall  perbh  by  the 
sword  ?  Can  any  one  who  possesses  the  peacable  doctrine  of  the 
gospel  be  a  soldier,  when  it  is  his  duty  not  so  much  a^  to  go  to 
law  ?  And  shall  he,  who  is  not  to  revenge  his  own  wrongs,  be 
instrumental  in  bringing  others  into  chains,  imprisonment,  torture, 
death  ?"  So  that  the  very  same  arguments  which  are  brought 
in  defence  of  war  at  the  present  day,  were  brought  against  the 
Christians  sixteen  hundred  years  ago ;  and  sixteen  hundred  years 
ago,  they  were  repelled  by  these  faithful  contenders  for  the  purity 
of  our  religion.  It  is  remarkable,  too,  that  Tertullian, appeals  to 
the  precepts  from  the  mount,  in  proof  of  those  principles  on  which 
this  Essay  has  been  insisting  : — that  the  dispositions  which  the  pre- 
cepts inculcate  are  not  compatible  with  war,  and  that  war,  therefore, 
is  irrcconcileable  with  Christianity. 

If  it  be  possible,  a  still  stronger  evidence  of  the  primitive  belief 
is  contained  in  the  circumstance,  that  some  of  the  Christian  au- 
thors declared  that  the  refusal  of  the  Christians  to  bear  arms,  was  a 
fulfilment  of  ancient  prophecy.  The  peculiar  strength  of  this  evi- 
dence consists  in  this — that  the  fact  of  a  refusal  to  bear  arms  is 
assumed  as  notorious  and  unquestioned.  Irenaeus,  who  lived 
about  anno  180,  affirms  that  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  which  de- 
clared that  men  should  turn  their  swords  into  ploughshares,  and 
their  spears  into  pruning  hooks,  had  been  fulfilled  in  his  time  : 
"  for  the  Christians,"  says  he,  "  have  changed  their  swords  and 
their  lances  into  instruments  of  peace,  and  they  know  not  now  how 
to  fight"  Justin  Martyr,  his  contemporary,  writes, — "That  the 
prophecy  is  fulfilled,  you  have  good  reason  to  believe,  for  \vo,  who 
*.n  times  past  killed  one  another,  do  not  now  fight  with  our  enemies.9 


Tertullian,  who  lived  later,  says,  "  You  must  confess  that  the  pro- 
phecy has  been  accomplished,  as  far  as  the  practice  of  every  indi 
vidual  is  concerned,  to  whom  it  is  applicable."* 

It  has  been  sometimes  said,  that  the  motive  which  influenced 
the  early  Christians  to  refuse  to  engage  in  war,  consisted  in  the 
idolatry  which  was  connected  with  the  Roman  armies.  One  mo- 
tive this  idolatry  unquestionably  afforded  ;  but  it  is  obvious,  from 
the  quotations  which  we  have  given,  that  their  belief  of  the  un- 
lawfulness of  fighting,  independent  of  any  question  of  idolatry, 
was  an  insuperable  objection  to  engaging  in  war.  Their  words 
are  expi?  o1 1 :  "  I  cannot  fight  if  I  die." — "  I  am  a  Christian,  and, 
therefore,  :  cannot  fight" — " Christ,"  says  Tertullian,  " by  disarm- 
ing Peter,  disarmed  every  soldier ;"  and  Peter  was  not  about  to 
fight  in  the,  armies  of  idolatry.  So  entire  was  their  conviction  of 
the  incompatibility  of  war  with  our  religion,  that  they  would  not 
even  be  present  at  the  gladiatorial  fights,  "  lest,"  says  Theophilus, 
*'  we  should  become  partakers  of  the  murders  committed  there." 
Can  any  one  believe  that  they  who  would  not  even  witness  a  battle 
between  two  men,  would  themselves  fight  in  a  battle  between 
armies?  And  the  destruction  of  a  gladiator,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered, was^authorized  by  the  state  as  much  as  the  destruction  of 
enemies  in  war. 

It  is,  therefore,  indisputable,  that  the  Christians  who  lived  near- 
est to  the  time  of  our  Saviour,  believed,  with  undoubting  confi- 
dence, that  he  had  unequivocally  forbidden  war — that  they  openly 
avowed  this  belief,  and  that,  in  support  of  it,  they  w^ere  willing 
to  sacrifice,  and  did  sacrifice,  their  fortunes  and  their  lives. 

*  These  examples  might  be  multiplied.  Enough,  however,  have  been  given  to 
establish  our  position ;  and  the  reader  who  desires  further  or  more  immediate  infor- 
mation, is  referred  to  Justin  Mart,  in  Dialog,  cum  Tryph.  ejusdemque  Apolog.  2. 
—ad  Zenam  :  Tertull.  de  corona  militis. — Apolog.  cap.  21  and  37. — lib.  de  Idolol. 
c.  17,  18, -19. — ad  Scapulam  cap.  1. — adversus  Jud.  cap.  7  and  9. — adv.  Gnost  13. 
— adv.  Marc.  c.  4. — lib.  de  patient,  c.  6.  10  :  Orig.  cont.  Celsum  lib.  3,  5,  8. — In 
Josuam  horn.  12.  cap.  9. — In  Mat.  cap.  26.  tract.  36  :  Cypr.  Epist.  56 — ad  Cornel. 
Lactan.  dejust.  lib  5.  c.  18.  lib.  6.  c.  20  :  Ambr.  in  Luc.  22.  Chrysost.  in  Matth.  5. 
horn.  18.— in  Matth.  26.  horn.  85.— lib.  2  de  Sacerdotio. — 1  Cor.  13  :  Cromat.  in 
Matth.  5.  Hieron.  ad  Ocean.— lib.  Epist.  p.  3.  torn.  1.  Ep.  2  ;  Aihan.  de  Inc.  Verb. 
Dei :  Cyrill.  Alex.  lib.  11.  in  Johan.  cap.  25,  26.  See  also  Erasmus.  Luc.  cap.  3. 
and  22.  Ludov.  Vives  in  Introd.  ad  Sap  :  1  Ferus  lib.  4.  Comment  in  Matin.  1  and 
Luc.  22. 


61 

Christians,  however,  afterwards  became  soldiers. — And  when  ? 
When  their  general  fidelity  to  Christianity  became  relaxed ; — • 
when,  in  other  respects,  they  violated  its  principles ; — when 
they  had  begun  "to  dissemble."  and  "to  falsify  their  word,"  and 
"  to  cheat ;" — when  "  Christian  casuists"  had  persuaded  them  that 
they  might  "  sit  at  meat  in  the  idol's  temple ;" — -when  Christians  ac- 
cepted even  the  priesthoods  of  idolatry.  In  a  word,  they  became 
soldiers,  when  they  had  ceased  to  be  Christians. 

The  departure  from  the  original  faithfulness  was,  however,  not 
suddenly  general.  Like  every  other  corruption,  war  obtained  by 
degrees.  During  the  first  two  hundred  years,  not  a  Christian  sol- 
dier is  upon  record.  In  the  third  century,  when  Christianity  became 
partially  corrupted,  Christian  soldiers  were  common.  The  number 
increased  with  the  increase  of  the  general  profligacy;  until  at 
last,  in  the  fourth  century,  Christians  became  soldiers  without 
hesitation,  and,  perhaps,  without  remorse.  Here  and  there,  how- 
ever, an  ancient  father  still  lifted  up  his  voice  for  peace  ;  but 
these,  one  after  another,  dropping  from  the  world,  the  tenet  that 
war  is  unlawful,  ceased  at  length  to  be  a  tenet  of  the  church. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  the  present  belief  in  the  lawfulness  of 
war.  It  began  in  unfaithfulness,  was  nurtured  by  profligacy,  and 
was  confirmed  by  general  corruption.  We  seriously  then,  and 
solemnly  invite  the  conscientious  Christian  of  the  present  day,  to 
consider  these  things.  Had  the  professors  of  Christianity  contin- 
ued in  the  purity  and  faithfulness  of  their  forefathers,  we  should 
now  have  believed  that  war  was  forbidden,  and  Europe,  many 
long  centuries  ago,  would  have  reposed  in  peace. 

Let  it  always  be  borne  in  mind  by  those  who  are  advocating 
war,  that  they  are  contending  for  a  corruption  which  their  fore- 
fathers abhorred ;  and  that  they  are  making  Jesus  Christ  the 
sanctioner  of  crimes  which  his  purest  followers  offered  up  their 
lives  because  they  would  not  commit. 

An  argument  has  sometimes  been  advanced  in  favor  of  war 
from  the  Divine  communications  to  the  Jews  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  Moses.  It  has  been  said  that  as  wars  were  allowed 
and  enjoined  to  that  people,  they  cannot  be  inconsistent  with  the 
will  of  God. 

We  have  no  intention  to  dispute,  that,  under  the  Mosaic  dispen- 
sation, some  wars  were  allowed,  or  that  they  were  enjoined  upon 


the  Jews  as  an  imperative  duty.  But  those  who  refer,  in  justifi- 
cation of  our  present  practice,  to  the  authority  by  which  the  Jews 
prosecuted  their  wars,  must  be  expected  to  produce  the  same  au- 
thority for  our  own.  Wars  were  commanded  to  the  Jews,  but  arc 
they  commanded  to  us  ?  War,  in  the  abstract,  was  never  com- 
manded. And  surely,  those  specific  wars  which  were  enjoined 
upon  the  Jews  for  an  express  purpose,  are  neither  authority  nor 
example  for  us,  who  have  received  no  such  injunction,  and  can 
plead  no  such  purpose. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  said  that  the  commands  to  prosecute  wars, 
even  to  extermination,  are  so  positive  and  so  often  repeated,  that 
it  is  not  probable,  if  they  were  inconsistent  with  the  wrill  of  Hea- 
ven, they  would  have  been  thus  peremptorily  enjoined.  We  an- 
swer, that  they  were  not  inconsistent  with  the  will  of  Heaven 
then.  But  even  then,  the  prophets  foresaw  that  they  were  not 
accordant  with  the  universal  will  of  God,  since  they  predicted 
that  when  that  will  should  be  fulfilled,  war  should  be  eradicated 
from  the  world.  And  by  what  dispensation  was  this  will  to  be 
fulfilled  ?  By  that  of  the  "  Rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse." 

But  what  do  those  who  refer  to  the  dispensation  of  Moses  main- 
tain ?  Do  they  say  that  the  injunctions  to  the  Jews  are  binding 
upon  them  ?  If  they  say  this,  we  have  at  least  reason  to  ask 
them  for  greater  consistency  of  obedience.  That  these  injunc- 
tions, in  point  of  fact,  do  not  bind  them,  they  give  sufficient  proof, 
by  the  neglect  of  the  greater  portion  of  them,  enforced  as  those 
injunctions  were,  by  the  same  authority  as  that  which  command- 
ed war.  They  have,  therefore,  so  far  as  their  argument  is  con- 
cerned, annulled  the  injunctions  by  their  own  rejection  of  them. 
And  out  of  ten  precepts  to  reject  nine  and  retain  one,  is  a  gratu- 
itous and  Idle  mode  of  argument. 

If  I  be  told  that  we  still  acknowledge  the  obligation  of  many  of 
these  precepts,  I  answer  that  we  acknowledge  the  duties  which 
they  enjoin,  but  not  because  of  the  authority  which  enjoined 
them.  We  obey  the  injunctions,  not  because  they  were  delivered 
under  the  law,  but  because  they  are  enforced  by  Christianity 
The  command,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  has  never  been  abolished ; 
but  Christians  do  not  prohibit  murder  because  it  was  denounced 
in  the  decalogue,  they  would  have  prohibited  it  if  the  decalogue 
iiad  never  existed. 


63 

But  farther :  Some  of  the  commands  under  the  law,  Christian- 
ity requires  us  to  disobey.  "  If  a  man  have  a  stubborn  and  rebel" 
lious  son,  which  will  not  obey  the  voice  of  his  father,  tac.  (til  the  men 
of  the  city  shall  stone  him  with  stones  that  he  die.*  If  thy  brother 
the  son  of  thy  mother,  or  thy  son,  or  thy  dan  gait: ,  <rr  the  icife  of  thy 
bosom,  entice  thee  secretly,  saying,  l  Let  us  go  end  >rr*v?  other  gods, 
thou  shatt  not  pity  him  or  conceal  him,  but  thou  shalt  purely  kill  him  ; 
thine  hand  shall  be  first  upon  him  to  put  him  to  death ."f  Now  we 
know  that  Christianity  will  not  sanction  an  obedience  of  these 
commands  ;  and  if  we  did  obey  them,  our  own  laws  would  treat 
us  as  murderers.  If  the  precepts  under  the  dispensation  of  Moses 
are  binding  because  they  were  promulgated  by  Heaven,  they  are 
binding  in  all  their  commands  and  all  their  prohibitions.  But 
some  of  these  precepts  we  habitually  disregard,  and  some  it  were 
criminal  to  obey  ;  and  with  what  reason  then  do  we  refer  to  them 
in  our  defence  1 

And  why  was  the  law  superseded?  Because  it  "  made  nothing 
perfect." — "  The  law  was  given  by  Moses,  but  grace  and  truth 
came  by  Jesus  Christ."  The  manner  in  which  the  author  of 
"  truth  "  prefaced  some  of  his  most  important  precepts  is  much  to 
our  present  purpose.  "It  hath  been  said  by  them  of  old  time,  an 
eye  for  an  eye,"  &c.  He  then  introduces  his  own  precept  with 
the  contradistinguishing  preface — '"  But  /  say  unto  you."  This, 
therefore,  appears  to  be  a  specific  abrogation  of  the  authority  of 
the  legal  injunctions,  and  an  introduction  of  another  system ;  and 
this  is  all  that  our  present  purpose  requires.  The  truth  is,  that 
the  law  was  abolished  because  of  its  imperfections  ;  yet  we  take 
hold  of  one  of  these  imperfections  in  justification  of  our  present 
practice.  Is  it  because  we  feel  that  we  cannot  defend  it  by  our 
own  religion  ? 

We  therefore  dismiss  the  dispensation  of  Moses  from  any  par- 
ticipation in  the  argument.  Whatever  it  allowed,  or  whatever 
it  prohibited  in  relation  to  war,  we  do  not  inquire.  We  ask  only 
what  Christianity  allows  and  prohibits,  and  by  this  we  determine 
the  question. — It  is  the  more  necessary  to  point  out  the  inapplica- 
bility of  these  arguments  from  the  Old  Testament,  because  there 
are  some  persons  of  desultory  modes  of  thinking,  who  find  that 

*  Deut  xxi.  18, 21.  t  I>eut.  xiii  9. 


64 

war  is  allowed  in  "  the  Bible,"  and  who  forget  to  inquire  into  the 
present  authority  of  the  permission. 

There  are  some  persons  who  suppose  themselves  sufficiently 
justified  in  their  approbation  of  war,  by  the  example  of  men  of 
piety  of  our  own  times.  The  argument,  as  an  argument,  is  of  lit- 
tle concern  ;  but  every  thing  is  important  that  makes  us  acquies- 
cent in  war.  Here  are  men,  say  they,  who  make  the  knowledge  of 
their  duties  the  great  object  of  their  study,  and  yet  these  men  engage 
in  war  without  any  doubt  of  its  lawfulness.  All  this  is  true ;  and 
it  is  true  also,  that  some  good  men  have  expressly  inculcated  the 
lawfulness  of  war ;  and  it  is  true  also,  that  the  articles  of  the 
Church  of  England  specifically  assert  it.  But  what,  if  it  should 
have  come  to  pass  that  "  blindness  in  part,  hath  happened  unto 
Israel?" 

What  is  the  argument  ?  That  good  men  have  engaged  in  war. 
and  therefore  that  Christianity  allows  it.  They  who  satisfy  them- 
selves with  such  reasoning,  should  bear  in  mind  that  he  who  vol- 
untarily passes  over  the  practice  of  the  first  two  centuries  of 
Christianity,  and  attempts  to  defend  himself  by  the  practice  of  after 
and  darker  ages,  has  obviously  no  other  motive  than  that  he  finds 
his  religion,  when  vitiated  and  corrupt,  more  suitable  to  his  pur- 
pose than  it  was  in  the  days  of  its  purity.  This  state  of  imperfec- 
tion and  impurity  has  diffused  an  influence  upon  the  good,  as  upon 
the  bad.  I  question  not  that  some  Christians  of  the  present  day 
who  defend  war,  believe  they  act  in  accordance  with  their  religion  ; 
just  as  I  question  not  that  many,  who  zealously  bore  faggots  to 
the  stake  of  the  Christian  martyrs,  believed  so  too.  The  time  has 
been,  when  those  who  killed  good  men  thought  "they  did  God 
service."  But  let  the  succeeding  declaration  be  applied  by  our 
present  objectors, — "  These  things  will  they  do  unto  you,  because 
they  have  not  known  the  Father  nor  Me."*  Here,  then,  appears  to 
be  our  error — that  we  do  not  estimate  the  conduct  of  men  by  the 
standard  of  the  gospel,  but  that  we  reduce  the  standard  of  the 
gospel  to  the  conduct  of  men.  That  good  men  should  fail  to  con- 
form to  the  perfect  purity  of  Christianity,  or  to  perceive  it,  need 
not  be  wondered,  for  we  have  sufficient  examples  of  it.  Good 
men  in  past  ages  allowed  many  things  as  permitted  by  Christian- 

*  John  xvi.  3. 


ity,  which  we  condemn,  and  shall  for  ever  condemn.  In  the  pre- 
sent day  there  are  many  questions  of  duty  on  which  men  of  piety 
disagree.  If  their  authority  be  rejected  by  us  on  other  points  of 
practice,  why  is  it  to  determine  the  question  of  war  ?  Especially 
why  do  we  insist  on  their  decisions,  when  they  differ  in  their  der 
cisions  themselves  ?  If  good  men  have  allowed  the  lawfulness  of 
war,  good  men  have  also  denied  it.  We  are  therefore  again  re- 
ferred to  the  simple  evidence  of  religion :  an  evidence  which  it 
will  always  be  found  wise  to  admit,  and  dangerous  to  question. 

There  is,  however,  one  argument  brought  against  us.  which,  if 
it  be  just,  precludes  at  once  all  question  upon  the  subject : — That 
a  distinction  is  to  be  made  between  rules  which  apply  to  us  as  indi- 
viduals, and  rules  which  apply  to  us  as  subjects  of  the  state ;  and 
that  the  pacific  injunctions  of  Christ  from  the  mount,  and  all  the 
other  kindred  commands  and  prohibitions  of  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures, have  no  reference  to  our  conduct  as  members  of  the  political 
body.  This  is  the  argument  to  which  the  greatest  importance  is 
attached  by  the  advocates  of  war,  and  by  which  thinking  men 
are  chiefly  induced  to  acquiesce  in  its  lawfulness.  In  reality, 
some  of  those  who  think  most  acutely  upon  the  subject,  ac- 
knowledge that  the  peaceable,  forbearing,  forgiving  disposition* 
of  Christianity,  are  absolutely  obligatory  upon  individuals  in  their 
full  extent ;  and  this  acknowledgment  I  would  entreat  the  reader 
to  bear  in  his  recollection. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  the  proof  of  the  rectitude  of  this  dis- 
tinction, must  be  expected  of  those  who  make  it.  General  rules 
are  laid  down  by  Christianity,  of  which,  in  some  cases,  the  ad- 
vocate of  war  denies  the  applicability.  He,  therefore,  is  to  pro- 
duce the  reason  and  the  authority  for  exception.  Now  we  would 
remind  him  that  general  rules  are  binding,  unless  their  inappli- 
cability can  be  clearly  shown.  We  would  remind  him  that  the 
general  rules  in  question,  are  laid  down  by  the  commissioned 
ministers  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  by  Jesus  Christ  himself ;  and  we 
would  recommend  him,  therefore,  to  hesitate  before  he  institutes 
exceptions  to  those  rules,  upon  any  authority  inferior  to  the  au- 
thority which  made  them. 

The  foundation  for  the  distinction  between  the  duties  of  Indi- 
v^duals  and  those  of  Communities,  must,  we  suppose,  be  sought 
:.n  one  of  these  two  positions : 

9 


66 

1.  That  as  no  law  exists,  of  general  authority  amongst  nations, 
by  which   one  state  is  protected  from  the  violence  of   another, 
it  is  necessary  that  each  independent  community  should  protect 
itself;    and  that  the  security  of  a  nation  cannot  sometimes   be 
maintained  otherwise  than  by  war. 

2.  That   as    the    general  utility  and  expediency  of  actions  is 
the  foundation  of  their  moral  qualities,  and  as  it  is   sometimes 
most    conducive   to   general  utility  and    expediency   that    there 
should  be  a  war,  war  is,  therefore,  sometimes  lawful. 

The  first  of  these  positions  will  probably  be  thus  enforced.  If 
an  individual  suffers  aggression,  there  is  a  Power  to  which  he 
can  apply  that  is  above  himself  and  above  the  aggressor  ;  a 
power  by  which  the  bad  passions  of  those  around  him  are  re- 
strained, or  by  which  their  aggressions  are  punished.  But 
amongst  nations  there  is  no  acknowledged  superior  or  common 
arbitrator. — Even  if  there  were,  there  is  no  way  in  which  its  de- 
cisions could  be  enforced,  but  by  the  sword.  War,  therefore,  is 
the  only  means  which  one  nation  possesses  of  protecting  itself 
from  the  aggression  of  another. 

This,  certainly,  is  plausible  reasoning  ;  but  it  happens  to  thi 
argument  as.  to  many  others,  that  it  assumes  that  as  established, 
which  has  not  been  proved,  and  upon  the  proof  of  which  the  truth 
of  the  whole  argument  depends.  It  assumes,  That  the  reason 
why  an  individual  is  not  permitted  to  use  violence,  is,  that  the 
laws  will  use  it  for  him.  And  in  this  the  fallacy  of  the  posi- 
tion consists  ;  for  the  foundation  of  the  duty  of  forbearance  in 
private  life,  is  not  that  the  laws  will  punish  aggression,  but  that 
Christianity  requires  forbearance.  Undoubtedly,  if  the  existence 
of  a  common  arbitrator  were  the  foundation  of  the  duty,  the  duty 
would  not  be  binding  upon  nations.  But  that  "which  we  require 
to  be  proved  is  this — that  Christianity  exonerates  nations  from 
those  duties  which  she  has  imposed  upon  individuals.  This,  the 
present  argument  does  not  prove  ;  and,  in  truth,  with  a  singular 
unhappiness  in  its  application,  it  assumes,  in  effect,  that  she  has 
imposed  these  duties  upon  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

If  it  be  said  that  Christianity  allows  to  individuals  some  degree 
and  kind  of  resistance,  and  that  some  resistance  is  therefore  law- 
ful to  states,  we  do  not  deny  it.  But  if  it  be  said  that  the  degree 
of  lawful  resistance  extends  to  the  slaughter  of  our  fellow  Chris 


07 

-that  it  extends  to  war,  we  do  deny  it  :  We  say  that  the 
rules  of  Christianity  cannot,  by  any  possible  latitude  of  interpre- 
tation, be  made  to  extend  to  it.  The  duty  of  forbearance  then,  is 
antecedent  to  all  considerations  respecting  the  condition  of  man ; 
and  whether  he  be  under  the  protection  of  laws  or  not,  the  duty 
of  forbearance  is  imposed. 

The  only  truth  which  appears  to  be  elicited  by  the  present  ar- 
gument, is,  that  the  difficulty  of  obeying  the  forbearing  rules  of 
Christianity,  is  greater  in  the  case  of  nations  than  in  the  case  of 
individuals :  The  obligation  to  obey  them  is  the  same  in  both.  Nor 
let  any  one  urge  the  difficulty  of  obedience  in  opposition  to  the 
duty ;  for  he  who  does  this  has  yet  to  learn  one  of  the  most  awful 
rules  of  his  religion — a  rule  that  was  enforced  by  the  precepts, 
and  more  especially  by  the  final  example,  of  Christ,  of  apostles, 
and  of  martyrs,  the  rule  which  requires  that  we  should  be  "  obe- 
dient even  unto  death." 

Let  it  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  we  believe  the  difficulty 
of  forbearance  would  be  as  great  in  practice  as  it  is  great  in  the- 
ory. We  hope  hereafter  to  show  that  it  promotes  our  interests  as 
certainly  as  it  fulfils  our  duties. 

The  rectitude  of  the  distinction  between  rules  which  apply  to 
individuals  and  rules  which  apply  to  states,  is  thus  maintained  by 
Dr.  Paley  on  the  principle  of  EXPEDIENCY. 

"  The  only  distinction,"  says  he,  "  that  exists  between  the  case  of 
independent  states  and  independent  individuals,  is  founded  in  this 
circumstance  :  that  the  particular  consequence  sometimes  appears 
to  exceed  the  value  of  the  general  rule  ;"  or,  in  less  technical 
words,  that  a  greater  disadvantage  may  arise  from  obeying  the 
commands  of  Christianity,  than  from  transgressing  them.  Expe- 
diency, it  is  said,  is  the  test  of  moral  rectitude,  and  the  standard  of 
our  duty.  If  we  believe  that  it  will  be  most  expedient  to  disre- 
gard the  general  obligations  of  Christianity,  that  belief  is  the  jus- 
tifying motive  of  disregarding  them.  Dr.  Paley  proceeds  to  say, 
"  In  the  transactions  of  private  persons,  no  advantage  that  results 
from  the  breach  of  a  general  law  of  justice,  can  compensate  to 
tne  public  for  the  violation  of  the  law  ;  in  the  concerns  of  emprr^ 
this  may  sometimes  be  doubted"  He  says  there  may  be  cases  in 
which  "  the  magnitude  of  the  particular  evil  induces  us  to  call  in 
question  the  obligation  of  the  general  rule."  "  Situations  may  bt 


68 

feigned,  and  consequently  may  possibly  arise,  in  which  the  general 
tendency  is  outweighed  by  the  enormity  of  the  particular  mis- 
chief." Of  the  doubts  which  must  arise  as  to  the  occasions  when 
the  "  obligation"  of  Christian  laws  ceases,  he  however  says  that 
"  moral  philosophy  furnishes  no  precise  solution  ;"  and  he  can- 
didly acknowledges  "  the  danger  of  leaving  it  to  the  sufferer  to 
decide  upon  the  comparison  of  particular  and  general  consequen- 
ces, and  the  still  greater  danger  of  such  decisions  being  drawn 
into  future  precedents.  If  treaties,  for  instance,  be  no  longer  bind- 
ing than  while  they  are  convenient,  or  until  the  inconveniency  as- 
cend to  a  certain  point  (which  point  must  be  fixed  by  the  judgment, 
or  rather  by  the  feelings  of  the  complaining  party), — one,  and 
almost  the  only  method  of  averting  or  closing  the  calamities  of 
war,  of  preventing  or  putting  a  stop  to  the  destruction  of  man- 
kind, is  lost  to  the  world  for  ever."  And  in  retrospect  of  the 
indeterminateness  of  these  rules  of  conduct,  he  says  finally, 
"  these,  however,  are  the  principles  upon  which  the  calculation 
is  to  be  formed."* 

It  is  obvious  that  this  reasoning  proceeds  upon  the  principle 
that  it  is  lawful  to  do  evil  that  good  may  come.  If  good  will  come 
by  violating  a  treaty,  we  may  violate  it.f  If  good  will  come 
by  slaughtering  other  men,  we  may  slaughter  them.  I  know 
that  the  advocate  of  expediency  will  tell  us  that  it  is  not  evil  of 
which  good,  in  tne  aggregate,  comes  ;  and  that  the  good  or  evil 
of  actions  consists  in  the  good  or  evil  of  their  general  conse- 
quences.— I  appeal  to  the  understanding  and  the  conscience  of 
the  reader — Is  this  distinction  honest  to  the  meaning  of  the 
apostle  ?  Did  he  intend  to  tell  his  readers  that  they  might  vio- 
late their  solemn  promises,  that  they  might  destroy  their  fellow 
Christians,  in  order  that  good  might  come  ?  If  he  did  mean  this, 
surely  there  was  little  truth  in  the  declaration  of  the  same  apostle, 
that  he  used  great  plainness  of  speech. 

We  are  told  that  "  whatever  is  expedient  is  right."  We  shall 
not  quarrel  with  the  dogma,  but  how  is  expediency  to  be  de- 
termined t  By  the  calculations  and  guessings  of  men,  or  by  the 
knowledge  and  foresight  of  God?  Expediency  may  be  the 


*    Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  Chap. "  Of  War  and  Military   Establish. 
ments."  4-  ibid. 


69 

test  of  our  duties,  but  what  is  the  test  of  expediency  ? — Obviously 
I  think,  it  is  this ;  the  decisions  which  God  has  made  known  respect 
ing  what  is  best  for  man.  Calculations  of  expediency,  of  "  particu 
lar  and  general  consequences,"  are  not  intrusted  to  us,  for  this 
most  satisfactory  reason — that  we  cannot  make  them.  The 
calculation,  to  be  any  thing  better  than  vague  guessing,  requires 
prescience,  and  where  is  prescience  to  be  sought  ?  Now  it  is  con- 
ceded by  our  opponents,  that  the  only  possessor  of  prescience  has 
declared  that  the  forbearing,  non-resisting  character  is  best  for 
man.  Yet  we  are  told,  that  sometimes  it  is*not  best,  that  some- 
times it  is  "  inexpedient."  How  do  we  discover  this  ?  The  pro- 
mulgator  of  the  law  has  never  intimated  it.  Whence,  then,  do 
we  derive  the  right  of  substituting  our  computations  for  His  pre- 
science ?  Or,  having  obtained  it,  what  is  the  limit  to  its  exercise? 
If,  because  we  calculate  that  obedience  will  not  be  beneficial,  we 
may  dispense  with  his  laws  in  one  instance,  why  may  we  not  dis- 
pense with  them  in  ten?  Why  may  we  not  abrogate  them 
altogether  ? 

The  right  is  however  claimed ;  and  how  is  it  to  be  exercised  ? 
We  are  told  that  the  duty  of  obedience  "may  sometimes  be 
doubted" — that  in  some  cases,  we  are  induced  to  "  call  in  question'1 
the  obligation  of  the  Christian  rule — that  "situations  may  be 
feigned" — that  circumstances  " may  possibly  arise"  in  which  we 
are  at  liberty  to  dispense  with  it — that  still  it  is  dangerous  to 
leave  "  it  to  the  sufferer  to  decide"  when  the  obligation  of  the  rule 
ceases ;  and  that  of  all  these  doubts  "  philosophy  furnishes  no 
precise  solution  !" — I  know  not  how  to  contend  against  such  prin- 
ciples as  these.  An  argument  might  be  repelled ;  the  assertion 
of  a  fact  might  be  disproved ;  but  what  answer  can  be  made  to 
"  possibilities"  and  "  doubts  ?"  They  who  are  at  liberty  to  guess 
that  Christian  laws  may  sometimes  be  suspended,  are  at  liberty 
to  guess  that  Jupiter  is  a  fixed  star,  or  that  the  existence  of 
America  is  a  fiction.  What  answer  the  man  of  science  would 
make  to  such  suppositions  I  do  not  know,  and  I  do  not  know 
what  answer  to  make  to  ours.  Amongst  a  community  which  had 
to  decide  on  the  "  particular  and  general  consequences"  of  some 
political  measure,  which  involved  the  sacrifice  of  the  principles 
of  Christianity,  there  would  of  necessity  be  an  endless  variety 
of  opinions.  Some  would  think  it  expedient  to  supersede  the  law 


70 

of  Christianity,  and  some  would  think  the  evil  of  obeying  the 
less  than  the  evil  of  transgressing  it.  Some  would  think  that  the 
"  particular  mischief"  outweighed  the  "  general  rule,"  and  some 
that  the  "general  rule"  outweighed  the  "particular  mischief." 
And  in  this  chaos  of  opinion,  what  is  the  line  of  rectitude,  or  how 
is  it  to  be  discovered?  Or,  is  that  rectitude,  which  appears  to 
each  separate  individual  to  be  right?  And  are  there  as  many 
species  of  truth  as  there  are  discordancies  of  opinion  ? — Is  this  the 
simplicity  of  the  gospel  ?  Is  this  the  path  in  which  a  wayfaring 
man,  though  a  fool,  shall  not  err  ? 

These  are  the  principles  of  expediency  on  which  it  is  argued 
that  the  duties  which  attach  to  private  life  do  not  attach  to 
citizens. — I  think  it  will  be  obvious  to  the  eye  of  candour,  that 
they  are  exceedingly  indeterminate  and  vague.  Little  more 
appears  to  be  done  by  Dr.  Paley  than  to  exhibit  their  doubtful- 
ness. In  truth,  I  do  not  know  whether  he  has  argued  better  in 
favour  of  his  position,  or  against  it.  To  me  it  appears  that  he 
has  evinced  it  to  be  fallacious ;  for  I  do  not  think  that  any  thing 
can  be  Christian  truth,  of  which  the  truth  cannot  be  more  evi- 
dently proved.  But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  conclusion, 
the  reader  will  certainly  perceive  that  the  whole  question  is 
involved  in  extreme  vagueness  and  indecision :  an  indecision  and 
vagueness,  which  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  Christianity  ever 
intended  should  be  hung  over  the  very  greatest  question  of  prac- 
tical morality  that  man  has  to  determine  ;  over  the  question  that 
asks  whether  the  followers  of  Christ  are  at  liberty  to  destroy  one 
another.  That  such  a  procedure  as  a  war  is,  under  any  circum- 
stances, sanctioned  by  Christianity,  from  whose  principles  it  is 
acknowledged  to  be  "  abhorrent,"  ought  to  be  clearly  made  out. 
It  ought  to  be  obvious  to  loose  examination.  It  ought  not  to  be 
necessary  to  ascertaining  it,  that  a  critical  investigation  should 
be  made,  of  questions  which  ordinary  men  cannot  comprehend, 
and  which,  if  they  comprehended  them,  they  could  not  determine  ; 
and  above  all,  that  investigation  ought  not  to  end,  as  we  have 
seen  it  does  end,  in  vague  indecision — in  "doubts"  of  which  even 
"  Philosophy  furnishes  no  precise  solution."  But  when  this  inde- 
cision and  vagueness  are  brought  to  oppose  the  Christian  evidence 
for  peace ;  when  it  is  contended,  not  only  tha*  it  militates  against 
that  evidence,  but  that  it  outbalances  and  supersedes  it — we 


71 

would  say  of  such  an  argument,  that  it  is  not  only  weak,  I  ut  idle 
of  such  a  conclusion,  that  it  is  not  only  unsound,  but  preposterous, 

Christian  obligation  is  a  much  more  simple  thing  than  specula* 
tive  philosophy  would  make  it  appear ;  and  to  all  those  who  sup- 
pose that  our  relations  as  subjects  dismiss  the  obligation  of  Chris- 
tian laws,  we  would  offer  the  consideration,  that  neither  the 
Founder  of  Christianity  nor  his  apostles  ever  made  the  distinc- 
tion. Of  questions  of  "  particular  and  general  consequences,"  of 
*•  general  advantages  and  particular  mischiefs,"  no  traces  are  to 
be  found  in  their  words  or  writings.  The  morality  of  Christianity 
is  a  simple  system,  adapted  to  the  comprehensions  of  ordinary 
men.  Were  it  otherwise,  what  would  be  its  usefulness  ?  If  philo- 
sophers only  could  examine  our  duties,  and  if  their  examinations 
ended  in  doubts  without  solution,  how  would  men,  without  learning 
and  without  leisure,  regulate  their  conduct?  1  think,  indeed, 
that  it  is  a  sufficient  objection  to  all  such  theories  as  the  present, 
that  they  are  not  adapted  to  the  wayfaring  man.  If  the  present 
theory  be  admitted,  one  of  these  two  effects  will  be  the  conse- 
quence :  the  greater  part  of  the  community  must  trust  for  the 
discovery  of  their  duties  to  the  sagacity  of  others,  or  they  must 
act  without  any  knowledge  of  their  duties  at  all. 

But,  that  the  pacific  injunctions  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  do 
apply  to  us,  under  every  circumstance  of  life,  whether  private  or 
public,  appears  to  be  made  necessary  by  the  universality  of  Chris- 
tian obligation.  The  language  of  Christianity  upon  the  obligation 
of  her  moral  laws,  is  essentially  this, — "  What  I  say  unto  you,  I 
say  unto  all."  The  pacific  laws  of  our  religion,  then,  are  binding 
upon  all  men ;  upon  the  king  and  upon  every  individual  who 
advises  him,  upon  every  member  of  a  legislature,  upon  every 
officer  and  agent,  and  upon  every  private  citizen.  How  then  can 
that  be  lawful  for  a  body  of  men  which  is  unlawful  for  each  indi- 
vidual ?  How  if  one  be  disobedient,  can  his  offence  make  diso- 
bedience lawful  to  all  ?  We  maintain  yet  more,  and  say,  that  to 
dismiss  Christian  benevolence  as  subjects,  and  to  retain  it  as 
individuals,  is  simply  impossible.  He  who  possesses  that  subju- 
gation of  the  affections  and  that  universality  of  benevolence,  by 
«rhich  he  is  influenced  to  do  good  to  those  who  hate  him,  and  to 
love  his  enemies  in  private  life,  cannot,  without  abandoning  those 


72 

dispositions,  butcher  other  men  because  they  are  called    public 
enemies. 

The  whole  position,  therefore,  that  the  pacific  commands  and 
prohibitions  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  do  not  apply  to  our  con 
duct  as  subjects  of  a  state,  appears  to  me  to  be  a  fallacy.  Some 
of  the  arguments  which  are  brought  to  support  it,  so  flippantly 
dispense  with  the  principles  of  Christian  obligation,  so  gratuitously 
assume,  that  because  obedience  may  be  difficult,  obedience  is  not 
required,  that  they  are  rather  an  excuse  for  the  distinction  than  a 
justification  of  it — and  some  are  so  lamentably  vague  and  inde- 
terminate, the  principles  which  are  proposed  are  so  technical,  so 
inapplicable  to  the  circumstance  of  society,  and  in  truth,  so  inca- 
pable of  being  practically  applied,  that  it  is  not  credible  that  they 
\vere  designed  to  suspend  the  obligation  of  rules  which  were 
imposed  by  a  revelation  from  Heaven. 

The  reputation  of  Dr.  Paley  is  so  great,  that,  as  he  has  devoted 
a  chapter  of  the  Moral  Philosophy  to  "  War  and  Military  Estab- 
lishments," it  will  perhaps  be  expected,  in  an  inquiry  like  the 
present,  that  some  specific  reference  should  be  made  to  his 
opinions ;  and  I  make  this  reference  willingly. 

The  chapter  "  on  War"  begins  thus : — "  Because  the  Christian 
Scriptures  describe  wars,  as  what  they  are,  as  crimes  or  judg- 
ments, some  men  have  been  led  to  believe  that  it  is  unlawful  for 
a  Christian  to  bear  arms.  But  it  should  be  remembered,  that  it 
may  be  necessary  for  individuals  to  unite  their  force,  and  for  this 
end  to  resign  themselves  to  a  common  will ;  and  yet  it  may  be 
true  that  that  will  is  often  actuated  by  criminal  motives,  and 
often  determined  to  destructive  purposes."  This  is  a  most 
remarkable  paragraph :  It  assumes,  at  once,  the  whole  subject 
of  inquiry,  and  is  an  assumption  couched  in  extraordinary  laxity 
of  language. — "  It  may  be  necessary  for  individuals  to  unite  their 
force."  The  tea-table  and  the  drawing-room  have  often  told  us 
this :  but  philosophy  should  tell  us  how  the  necessity  is  proved. 
Nor  is  the  morality  of  the  paragraph  more  rigid  than  the  philo- 
sophy,— "  Wars  are  crimes,"  and  are  often  undertaken  from 
"  criminal  motives,  and  determined  to  destructive  purposes  ;"  yet 
of  these  purposes,  and  motives,  and  crimes,  "  it  may  be  necessary* 
for  Christians  to  become  the  abettors  and  accomplices ! 


73 

Paley  proceeds  to  say,  that  in  the  New  Testament  the  profession 
of  a  soldier*  is  nowhere  forbidden  or  condemned ;  and  he  refers  tc 
the  case  of  John  the  Baptist,  of  the  Roman  centurion,  and  of 
'Cornelius;  and  with  this  he  finishes  all  inquiry  into  the  Christian 
evidence  upon  the  subject,  after  having  expended  upon  it  less 
than  a  page  of  the  edition  before  me. 

These  arguments  are  all  derived  from  the  silence  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  to  all  reasoning  founded  upon  this  silence,  no  one 
can  give  a  better  answer  than  himself.  In  replying  to  the  defences 
by  which  the  advocates  of  slavery  attempt  to  justify  it,  he 
notices  that  which  they  advance  from  the  silence  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment respecting  it.  He  says — It  is  urged  that  "  Slavery  was  a 
part  of  the  civil  constitution  of  most  countries  when  Christianity 
appeared ;  yet  that  no  passage  is  to  be  found  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  by  which  it  is  condemned  or  prohibited."  "  This,"  he 
rejoins,  "  is  true ;  for  Christianity,  soliciting  admission  into  all 
natiois  of  the  world,  abstained,  as  behooved  it,  from  intermed- 
dling with  the  civil  institutions  of  any.  But  does  it  follow,  from 
the  silence  of  Scriptures  concerning  them,  that  all  the  civil  insti- 
tutions which  then  prevailed  were  right;  or  that  the  bad  should 
not  be  exchanged  for  better?"  I  beg  the  reader  to  apply  this 
reasoning  to  Paley's  own  arguments  in  favour  of  war  from  the 
silence  of  the  Scriptures.  How  happens  it  that  he  did  not 
remember  it  himself? 

Now  I  am  compelled  to  observe,  that  in  the  discussion  of  the 
lawfulness  of  wrar,  Dr.  Paley  has  neglected  his  professed  princi- 
ples of  decision  and  his  ordinary  practice.  His  professed  princi- 
ples are  these  ;  that  the  discovery  of  the  "  will  of  God,  which  is 
the  whole  business  of  morality,"  is  to  be  attained  by  referring, 
primarily,  to  "  his  express  declarations  when  they  are  to  be  had, 
and  which  must  be  sought  for  in  Scripture." — Has  he  sought  for 
these  declarations  ?  Has  he  sought  for  "  Resist  not  evil,"  or  for 
"  Love  your  enemies,"  or  for  "  Put  up  thy  sword,"  or  for  "  The 

*  I  do  not  know  why  "the  profession  of  a  soldier"  is  substituted  for  the  simple 
term,  war.  Dr.  P.  does  not  say  that  war  is  nowhere  forbidden  or  condemned, 
which  censure  or  prohibit  ion  it  is  obviously  easy  to  have  pronounced  without  even 
noticing  "the  profession  of  a  soldier.''  I  do  not  say  that  this  language  implies  a 
want  of  ingenuousness,  but  it  certainly  was  more  easy  to  prove  that  the  profession 
of  a  soldier  is  nowhere  condemned,  than  that  war  is  nowhere  condemned. 

10 


74 

weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not  carnal,"  or  for  "  My  kingck  m  is 
not  of  this  world?"  He  has  sought  for  none  of  these;  he  has 
examined  none  of  them.  He  has  noticed  none  of  them.  His 
professed  principles  are,  again,  that  when  our  instructions  are 
dubious,  we  should  endeavor  to  explain  them  by  what  we  can  collect 
of  our  Master's  general  inclination  or  intention*  Has  he  con- 
formed to  his  own  rule  ?  Has  he  endeavored  to  collect  this  gene- 
ral inclination,  and  to  examine  this  general  tendency?  He  has 
taken  no  notice  of  it  whatever.  This  neglect,  we  say,  is  contrary 
to  his  ordinary  practice.  Upon  other  subjects,  he  has  assiduously 
applied  to  the  Christian  Scriptures  in  determination  of  truth.  •  He 
has  examined  not  only  their  direct  evidence,  but  the  evidence 
which  they  afford  by  induction  and  implication, — the  evidence 
arising  from. their  general  tendency.  Suicide  is  nowhere  con- 
demned in  the  New  Testament ;  yet  Paley  condemns  it.  and  how? 
He  examines  the  sacred  volume,  and  finds  that  by  implication 
and  inference,  it  may  be  collected  that  suicide  is  not  permitted  by 
Christianity.  He  says  that  patience  under  suffering  is  inculcated 
as  an  important  duty ;  and  that  the  recommendation  of  patience, 
implies  the  unlawfulness  of  suicide  to  get  out  of  suffering.  This 
is  sound  reasoning;  but  he  does  not  adopt  it  in  the  examination 
of  war.  Could  he  not  have  found  that  the  inculcation  of  peace- 
ableness  forms  as  good  an  argument  against  the  lawfulness  of 
war,  as  the  inculcation  of  patience  forms  against  the  lawfulness 
of  suicide  ?  He  certainly  could  have  done  this,  and  why  has  he 
not  done  it?  Why  has  he  passed  it  over  in  silence  ? 

I  must  confess  my  belief,  that  he  was  unwilling  to  discuss  the 
subject  upon  Christian  principles ;  that  he  had  resolved  to  make 
war  consistent  with  Christianity  ;  and  that,  foreseeing  her  "  ex- 
press declarations"  and  "  general  intentions"  militated  against  it, 
he  avoided  noticing  them  at  all.  Thus  much  at  least  is  certain, 
that  in  discussing  the  lawfulness  of  war,  he  has  abandoned  both 
his  avowed  principles  and  his  correspondent  practice.  There  is, 
to  me  at  least,  in  the  chapter  "  On  War,"  an  appearance  of  great 
indecision  of  mind,  arising  from  the  conflict  between  Christian  truth 
and  the  power  of  habit, — between  the  consciousness  that  war  is 
"abhorrent"  to  our  religion,  and  the  desire  to  defend  it  on  the 

*  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  Book  ii.  Chap.  4. 


75 

principle  of  expediency.     The  whole  chapter  is  characterized  bl 
a  very  extraordinary  laxity  both  of  arguments  and  principles. 

After  the  defensibility  of  war  has  been  proved,  or  assumed,  in 
the  manner  which  we  have  exhibited,  Dr.  Paley  states  the  occa- 
sions -jpon  wiiich  he  determines  that  wars  become  justifiable. 
"  The  objects  of  just  wars,"  says  he.  "  are  precaution,  defence,  or 
reparation." — "  Every  just  war  supposes  an  injury  perpetrated, 
attempted,  or  feared." 

I  shall  acknowledge,  that  if  these  be  justifying  motives  to  war, 
I  see  very  little  purpose  in  talking  of  morality  upon  the  subject. 
It  was  wise  to  leave  the  principles  of  Christianity  out  of  the 
question,  and  to  pass  them  by  unnoticed,  if  they  were  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  principles  like  these.  It  is  in  vain  to  expatiate  on 
moral  obligations,  if  we  are  at  liberty  to  declare  war  whenever 
an  **  injury  is  feared."  An  injury,  without  limit  to  its  insignifi- 
cance !  A  fear,  without  stipulation  for  its  reasonableness  !  The 
judges,  also,  of  the  reasonableness  of  fear,  are  to  be  they  who  are 
under  its  influence  :  and  who  so  likely  to  judge  amiss  as  those 
who  are  afraid  ?  Sounder  philosophy  than  this  has  told  us,  that 
"  he  who  has  to  reason  upon  his  duty  when  the  temptation  to 
transgress  it  is  before  him,  is  almost  sure  to  reason  himself  into 
an  error."  The  necessity  for  this  ill-timed  reasoning,  and  the 
allowance  of  it,  is  amongst  the  capital  objections  to  the  philosophy 
of  Paley.  It  tells  us  that  a  people  may  suspend  the  laws  of  God 
when  they  fhink  it  is  "  expedient  ;v  and  they  are  to  judge  of  this 
expediency  when  the  temptation  to  transgression  is  before  them ! 
— Has  Christianity  left  the  lawfulness  of  human  destruction  to  be 
determined  on  such  principles  as  these  ? 

Violence,  rapine,  and  ambition,  are  not  to  be  restrained  by 
morality  like  this.  It  may  serve  for  the  speculation  of  a  study ; 
but  we  will  venture  to  affirm  that  mankind  will  never  be  con- 
trolled by  it.  Moral  rules  are  useless,  if,  from  their  own  nature, 
they  cannot  be,  or  will  not  be  applied.  Who  believes  that  if  kings 
and  conquerors  may  fight  when  they  have  fears,  they  will  not 
fight  when  they  have  them  not?  The  morality  allows  too  much 
latitude  to  the  passions,  to  retain  any  practical  restraint  upon 
them.  And  a  morality  that  will  not  be  practised,  I  had  almost 
said,  that  cannot  be  practised,  is  an  useless  morality.  It  is  a 
\heory  of  morals.  We  want  clearer  and  more  exclusive  rules 


76 


we  want  more  obvious  and  immediate  sanctions.  It  were  in  vain 
for  a  philosopher  to  say  to  a  general  who  was  burning  for  glory, 
"You  are  at  liberty  to  engage  in  the  war  provided  you  have  suf- 
fered, or  fear  you  will  suffer  an  injury;  otherwise  Christianity 
prohibits  it."  He  will  tell  him  of  twenty  injuries  that  have  been 
suffered,  of  a  hundred  that  have  been  attempted,  and  often  thou 
sand  that  he  fears.  And  what  answer  can  the  philosopher  make 
to  him  ? 

I  think  that  Dr.  Paley  has,  in  another  and  a  later  work,  given 
us  stronger  arguments  in  favour  of  peace  than  the  Moral  Philo- 
sophy gives  in  favour  of  war.  In  the  "  Evidences  of  Christianity" 
we  find  these  statements  : — "  The  two  following  positions  appear 
to  me  to  be  satisfactorily  made  out :  first,  That  the  gospel  omits 
some  qualities,  which  have  usually  engaged  the  praises  and  admi- 
ration of  mankind,  but  which,  in  reality,  and  in  their  general 
effects,  have  been  prejudicial  to  human  happiness ;  secondly,  that 
the  gospel  has  brought  forward  some  virtues,  which  possess  the 
highest  intrinsic  value,  but  which  have  commonly  been  overlooked 
and  condemned. — The  second  of  these  propositions  is  exemplified 
in  the  instances  of  passive  courage  or  endurance  of  suffering, 
patience  under  affronts  and  injuries,  humility,  irresistance,  placa- 
bility.— The  truth  is,  there  are  two  opposite  descriptions  of  charac- 
ter under  which  mankind  may  be  generally  classed.  The  one 
possesses  vigour,  firmness,  resolution,  is  daring  and  active,  quick 
in  its  sensibilities,  jealous  in  its  fame,  eager  in  its  attachments, 
inflexible  in  its  purpose,  violent  in  its  resentments.  The  other 
meek,  yielding,  complying,  forgiving,  not  prompt  to  act,  but  wil- 
ling to  suffer,  silent  and  gentle  under  rudeness  and  insult,  suing 
for  reconciliation  where  others  would  demand  satisfaction,  giving 
way  to  the  pushes  of  impudence,  conceding  and  indulgent  to  the 
prejudices,  the  wrong-headedness,  the  intractibility  of  those  with 
whom  it  has  to  deal. — The  former  of  these  characters  is,  and 
ever  hath  been,  the  favourite  of  the  world. — Yet  so  it  hath  hap- 
pened, that  with  the  Founder  of  Christianity,  this  latter  is  the  sub- 
ject of  his  commendation,  his  precepts,  his  example ;  and  that  the 
former  is  so,  in  no  part  of  its  composition.  This  morality  shows,  at 
least,  that  no  two  things  can  be  more  different  than  the  heroic  and 
the  Christian  characters.  Now  it  is  proved,  in  contradiction  to 
first  impressions,  to  popular  opinion,  to  the  encomiums  of  orators 


77 

and  poets,  and  even  to  the  suffrages  of  historians  and  moralists, 
that  the  latter  character  possesses  most  of  true  worth,  both  as  being 
most  difficult  either  to  be  acquired  or  sustained,  and  as  contribu- 
ting most  to  the  happiness  and  tranquillity  of  social  life. — If  this 
disposition  were  universal,  the  case  is  clear ;  the  world  would  be 
a  society  of  friends :  whereas,  if  the  other  disposition  were  uni- 
versal, it  would  produce  a  scene  of  universal  contention.  The 
world  would  not  be  able  to  hold  a  generation  of  such  men.  If, 
what  is  the  fact,  the  disposition  be  partial ;  if  a  few  be  actuated 
by  it  amongst  a  multitude  who  are  not,  in  whatever  degree  it  does 
prevail,  it  prevents,  allays,  and  terminates  quarrels,  the  great  dis- 
turbers of  human  happiness,  and  the  great  sources  of  human  misery, 
so  far  as  man's  happiness  and  misery  depend  upon  man.  The 
preference  of  the  patient  to  the  heroic  character,  which  we  have 
here  noticed,  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  Christian  institution,  which  I 
propose  as  an  argument  of  wisdom."* 

These  are  the  sentiments  of  Dr.  Paley  upon  this  great  characte- 
ristic of  the  Christian  morality.  I  think  that  in  their  plain,  literal, 
and  unsophisticated  meaning,  they  exclude  the  possibility  of  the 
lawfulness  of  war.  The  simple  conclusion  from  them  is,  that 
violence,  and  devastation,  and  human  destruction  cannot  exist  in 
conjunction  with  the  character  of  a  Christian.  This  would  be  the 
conclusion  of  the  inhabitant  of  some  far  and  peaceful  island, 
where  war  and  Christianity  were  alike  unknown.  If  he  read 
these  definitions  of  the  Christian  duties,  and  were  afterwards  told 
that  we  thought  ourselves  allowed  to  plunder  and  to  murder  one 
another,  he  would  start  in  amazement  at  the  monstrous  incon- 
sistency. Casuistry  may  make  her  "  distinctions,"  and  philosophy 

*  I  must  be  just.  After  these  declarations,  the  author  says,  that  when  the  laws 
which  inculcate  the  Christian  character,  are  applied  to  what  is  necessary  to  be 
done  for  the  sake  of  the  public,  they  are  applied  to  a  case  to  which  they  do  not 
belong;  and  he  adds,  "  This  distinction  is  plain,"  but  in  what  its  plainness  consists, 
or  how  it  is  discovered  at  all,  he  does  not  inform  us.  The  reader  will  probably 
wonder,  as  I  do,  that  whilst  Paley  says  no  two  things  can  be  more  opposite  than 
the  Christian  and  the  heroic  characters,  he  nevertheless  thinks  it  "  is  plain"  that 
Christianity  sanctions  the  latter. 

1  would  take  the  opportunity  afforded  me  by  this  note,  to  entreat  the  reader  to 
took  over  the  whole  of  Chap.  2,  Part  II.,  in  the  Evidences  of  Christianity.  lie 
will  find  many  observations  on  the  placability  of  the  gospel,  which  will  repay  the 
time  of  reading  them. 


78 

may  talk  of  her  "expediencies,"  but  the  monstrous  inconsistency 
remains.  What  is  the  fact  ?  Mahometans  and  Pagans  do  not 
believe  that  our  religion  allows  of  war.  They  reproach  us  with 
the  inconsistency.  Our  wars  are,  with  them,  a  scandal  and  a 
taunt.  "You  preach  to  us,"  say  they,  "of  Christianity,  and 
would  convert  us  to  your  creed ; — first  convert  yourselves ;  show 
us  that  yourselves  believe  in  it."  Nay,  the  Jews  at  our  own 
doors  tell  us,  that  our  wars  are  an  evidence  that  the  Prince  of 
Peace  is  not  come.  They  bring  the  violence  of  Christians  to 
prove  that  Christ  was  a  deceiver.  Thus  do  we  cause  the  way  of 
truth  to  be  evil  spoken  of.  Thus,  are  we,  who  should  be  the 
helpers  of  the  world,  its  stumbling-blocks  and  its  shame.  We, 
who  should  be  lights  to  them  that  sit  in  darkness,  cause  them  to 
love  that  darkness  still.  Well  may  the  Christian  be  ashamed  for 
these  things :  Well  may  he  be  ashamed  for  the  reputation  of  his 
religion :  And  he  may  be  ashamed  too,  for  the  honoured  defender 
of  the  Christian  faith  who  stands  up,  the  advocate  of  blood ;  who 
subtilizes  the  sophisms  of  the  schools,  and  roves  over  the  fields  of 
speculation  to  find  an  argument  to  convince  us  that  we  may  mur- 
der one  another !  This  is  the  "  wisdom  of  the  world ;"  that 
wisdom  which  is,  emphatically,  "  FOOLISHNESS." 

We  have  seen  that  the  principle  on  which  Dr.  Paley's  Moral 
Philosophy  decides  that  war  is  lawful,  is,  that  it  is  expedient.  1 
know  not  how  this  argument  accords  with  some  of  the  state- 
ments  of  the  Evidences  of  Christianity.  We  are  there  told  that 
the  non-resisting  character  "  possesses  the  highest  intrinsic  value," 
and  the  "  most  of  true  worth ;"  that  it  "  prevents  the  great  dis- 
turbances of  human  happiness,"  and  destroys  "  the  great  sources 
of  human  misery,"  and  that  it  "  contributes  most  to  the  happi- 
ness and  tranquillity  of  social  life."  And  in  what  then  does  ex- 
pediency consist,  if  the  non-resisting  character  be  not  expedi- 
ent ?  Dr.  Paley  says,  again,  in  relation  to  the  immense  mischief 
and  bloodshed  arising  from  the  violation  of  Christian  duty — 
"  We  do  not  say  that  no  evil  can  exceed  this,  nor  any  possible 
advantage  compensate  it,  but  we  say  that  a  loss  which  affects 
all,  will  scarcely  be  made  up  to  the  common  stock  of  human  happi- 
ness, by  any  benefit  that  can  be  procured  to  a  single  nation!9  And 
is  not  therefore  the  violation  of  the  duty  inexpedient  as  well  as 
criminal?  He  says  again  that  the  warlike  character  "is,  in  its 


79 

,  °ffects,  prejudicial  to  human  happiness  ~—  and  therefore 
surely,  it  is  inexpedient. 

The  advocate  of  war,  in  the  abundance  of  his  topics  of  de- 
fence (or  in  the  penury  of  them)  has  had  recourse  to  this  : — • 
jT/w/i  as  a  greater  number  of  male  children  are  brought  into  the 
world  than  of  female,  wars  are  the  ordination  of  Providence  to  rec- 
tify the  inequality  ;  and  one  or  two  moralists  have  proceeded  a 
step  farther,  and  have  told  us,  not  that  war  is  designed  to  carry 
off  the  excess,  but  that  an  excess  is  born  in  order  to  supply  its 
vlauphters.  Dreadful  !  Are  we  to  be  told  that  God  sends  too 
many  of  his  rational  creatures  into  the  world,  and  therefore 
that  he  stands  in  need  of  wars  to  destroy  them  ?  Has  he  no 
other  means  of  adjusting  the  proportions  of  the  species,  than  by 
a  system  which  violates  the  revelation  that  he  has  made,  and 
the  duties  that  he  has  imposed  ?  Or,  yet  more  dreadful — are 
we  to  be  told  that  He  creates  an  excess  of  one  of  the  sexes,  on 
purpose  that  their  destruction  of  each  other  may  be  with  impu- 
nity to  the  species.  This  reasoning  surely  is  sufficiently  confi- 
dent : — -I  fear  it  is  more  than  sufficiently  profane.  But  alas  for 
the  argument !  It  happens  most  unfortunately  for  it,  that  al- 
though more  males  are  born  than  females,  yet  from  the  greater 
mortality  of  the  former,  it  is  found  that  long  before  the  race  ar- 
rives at  maturity,  the  number  of  females  predominates.  What  a 
pity — that  just  as  the  young  men  had  grown  old  enough  to  kill 
one  another,  it  should  be  discovered  that  there  are  not  too  many 
to  remain  peaceably  alive  !  Let  then,  the  principle  be  retained 
and  acted  upon  ;  and  since  we  have  now  an  excess  of  females, 
let  us  send  forth  an  armament  of  ladies  that  their  redundance 
may  be  lopped  by  the  appointed  means. — But  really  it  is  time 
for  the  defender  of  war  to  abandon  reasoning  like  this.  It  argues 
little  in  favor  of  any  cause,  that  its  advocates  have  recourse  to 
such  deplorable  subterfuges. 

The  magistrate  "beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain;  for  he  is  the 
minister  of  God,  a  revenger  to  execute  wrath  upon  him  that 
doeth  evil.''  From  this  acknowledgment  of  the  lawfulness  of 
coercion  on  the  part  of  the  civil  magistrate,  an  argument  has 
been  advanced  in  favor  of  war.  It  is  said,  that  by  parity  of 
reasoning,  coercion  is  also  lawful  in  the  suppression  of  the  vio- 
lence which  one  nation  uses  towards  another. 


80 

Some  men  talk  as  if  the  principles  which  we  maintain  were 
subversive  of  all  order  and  government.  They  ask  us — Is  the 
civil  magistrate  to  stand  still  and  see  lawless  violence  ravaging 
the  land  ?  Is  the  whole  fabric  of  human  society  to  be  dissolved  ? 

We  answer,  No  ;  and  that  whencesoever  these  men  may  have 
derived  their  terrors,  they  are  not  chargeable  upon  us  or  upon 
our  principles.  To  deduce  even  a  plausible  argument  in  favor  of 
war  from  the  permission,  "  to  execute  wrath  upon  him  that  doeth 
evil,"  it  is  obviously  necessary  to  show  that  we  are  permitted  to 
take  his  life.  And  the  right  to  put  an  offender  to  death,  must  be 
proved,  if  it  can  be  proved  at  all,  either  from  an  express  permission 
of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  or,  supposing  Christianity  to  have 
given  no  decisions,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  from  a  necessity 
which  knows  no  alternative.  Now  every  one  knows  that  this  ex- 
press permission  to  inflict  death  is  not  to  be  found  ;  and,  upon  the 
question  of  its  necessity,  we  ask  for  that  evidence  which  alone  can 
determine  it — -the  evidence  of  experience  :  and  this  evidence  the 
advocate  of  war  has  never  brought,  and  cannot  bring.  And  we 
shall  probably  not  be  contradicted  when  we  say  that  that  degree 
of  evidence  which  experience  has  afforded,  is  an  evidence  in  our 
favor  rather  than  against  us. 

But  some  persons  entertain  an  opinion,  that  in  the  case  of  mur- 
der, at  least,  there  is  a  sort  of  immutable  necessity  for  taking  the 
offender's  life.  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his 
blood  be  shed."  If  any  one  urges  this  rule  against  us,  we  reply, 
that  it  is  not  a  rule  of  Christianity ;  and  if  the  necessity  of  de- 
manding blood  for  blood  is  an  everlasting  principle  of  retributive 
justice,  how  happens  it  that  in  the  first  case  in  which  murder  was 
committed,  the  murderer  was  not  put  to  death  ? 

The  philosopher  however  would  prove  what  the  Christian  can- 
not ;  and  Mably  accordingly  says,  "  In  the  state  of  nature  I  have 
a  right  to  take  the  life  of  him  who  lifts  his  arm  against  mine. 
This  right,  upon  entering  into  society,  I  surrender  to  the  magistrate." 
If  we  conceded  the  truth  of  the  first  position,  (which  we  do  not,) 
the  conclusion  from  it  is  a  sophism  too  idle  for  notice.  Having, 
however,  been  thus  told  that  the  state  has  a  right  to  kill,  we  are 
next  informed  by  Filangieri,  that  the  criminal  has  no  right  to  live. 
He  says,  "  If  I  have  a  right  to  kill  another  man,  he  has  lost  his 


81 

right  tc  life"*  Rousseau  goes  a  little  farther.  He  tells  us  that 
in  consequence  of  the  "  social  contract"  which  we  make  with  the 
sovereign  on  entering  into  society,  "  Life  is  a  conditional  grant  of 
the  state  ;"f  so  that  we  hold  our  lives,  it  seems,  only  as  "  tenants 
at  will,"  and  must  give  them  up  whenever  their  owner,  the 
state,  requires  then*..  The  reader  has  probably  hitherto  thought 
that  he  retained  his  head  by  some  other  tenure. 

The  right  of  taking  an  offender's  life  being  thus  proved,  Mably 
shows  us  how  its  exercise  becomes  expedient.  "  A  murderer," 
says  he,  "  in  taking  away  his  enemy's  life,  believes  he  does  him  the 
greatest  possible  evil.  Death,  then,  in  the  murderer's  estimation, 
is  the  greatest  of  evils.  By  the  fear  of  death,  therefore,  the  ex- 
cesses of  hatred  and  revenge  must  be  restrained."  If  language 
wilder  than  this  can  be  held,  Rousseau,  I  think,  holds  it.  He  says, 
"  The  preservation  of  both  sides  (the  criminal  and  the  state)  is 
incompatible  ;  one  of  the  two  must  perish."  How  it  happens  that 
a  nation  "  must  perish  "  if  a  convict  is  not  hanged,  the  reader,  I 
suppose,  will  not  know. 

I  have  referred  to  these  speculations  for  the  purpose  of  show- 
ing, that  the  right  of  putting  offenders  to  death  is  not  easily  made 
out.  Philosophers  would  scarcely  have  had  recourse  to  these 
metaphysical  abstractions  if  they  knew  an  easier  method  of 
establishing  the  right.  Even  philosophy,  however,  concedes  us 
much : — "  Absolute  necessity,  alone,"  says  Pastoret,  "  can  justify  the 
punishment  of  death  ;"  and  Rousseau  himself  acknowledges,  that, 
"we  have  no  right  to  put  to  death,  even  for  the  sake  of  example, 
any  but  those  who  cannot  be  permitted  to  live  without  danger." 
Beccaria  limits  the  right  to  two  specific  cases  ;  in  which,  "  if  an 
individual,  though  deprived  of  his  liberty,  has  still  such  credit  and 
connexions  as  may  endanger  the  security  of  the  nation,  or,  by  his 
existence,  is  likely  to  produce  a  dangerous  revolution  in  the 
established  form  of  government — he  must  undoubtedly  die.''J  It 
is  not.  perhaps,  necessary  for  us  to  point  out  why,  in  these  suppo- 
sitions cases,  a  prisoner  may  not  be  put  to  death ;  since  I  believe 
that  philosophy  will  find  it  difficult,  on  some  of  her  own  princi- 
ples, to  justify  his  destruction :  For  Dr.  Paiey  decides,  that  when- 


Montagu  on  Punishment  of  Death.  t  Contr.  Soc.  ii.  5  Montagu. 

£  Del  Delitti  e  delia  Penes,  xvi.  Montagu. 
11 


8.2 

ever  a  man  thinks  there  are  great  grievances  in  the  existing 
government,  and  that,  by  heading  a  revolt,  he  can  redress  them, 
without  occasioning  greater  evil  by  the  rebellion  than  benefit  by 
its  success — it  is  his  duty  to  rebel.*  The  prisoner  whom  Beccaria 
supposes,  may  be  presumed  to  have  thought  this  ;  and  with  rea 
son  too,  for  the  extent  of  his  credit,  his  connexions,  and  his  suc- 
cess, is  the  plea  for  putting  him  to  death ;  and  we  must  therefore 
leave  it  to  those  who  indulge  in  such  speculations,  to  consider,  how  it 
can  be  right  for  one  man  to  take  the  lead  in  a  revolution,  whilst 
it  is  right  for  another  to  hang  him  for  taking  it. 

What  then  does  the  lawfulness  of  coercion  on  the  part  of  the 
magistrate  prove  upon  the  question  of  the  lawfulness  of  war  ?  If 
capital  punishments  had  never  been  inflicted,  what  \vould  it  have 
proved?  Obviously  nothing.  If  capital  punishments  cannot  be 
shown  to  be  defensible,  what  does  it  prove  ?  Obviously  nothing :  for 
an  unauthorized  destruction  of  human  life  on  the  gallows,  cannot 
justify  another  unauthorized  destruction  of  it  on  the  field. 

Perhaps  some  of  those  who  may  have  been  hitherto  willing  to 
give  me  a  patient  attention,  will  be  disposed  to  withdraw  it,  when 
they  hear  the  unlawfulness  of  defensive  war  unequivocally  main- 
tained. But  it  matters  not.  My  business  is  with  what  appears 
to  me  to  be  truth :  if  truth  surprises  us,  I  cannot  help  it — still  it 
is  truth. 

Upon  the  question  of  defensive  war,  I  would  beg  the  reader  to 
bear  in  his  recollection,  that  every  feeling  of  his  nature  is  enlisted 
against  us ;  and  I  would  beg  him.  knowing  this,  to  attain  as  com- 
plete an  abstraction  from  the  influence  of  those  feelings  as  shall 
be  in  his  power.  This  he  will  do,  if  he  is  honest  in  the  inquiry 
for  truth.  It  is  not  necessary  to  conceal  that  the  principles  which 
we  maintain  may  sometimes  demand  the  sacrifice  of  our  apparent 
interests.  Such  sacrifices  Christianity  has  been  wont  to  require : 
they  are  the  tests  of  our  fidelity ;  and  of  those  whom  I  address,  I 
believe  there  are  some,  who,  if  they  can  be  assured  that  we 
speak  the  language  of  Christianity,  will  require  no  other  induce- 
ments to  obedience. 

The  lawfulness  of  defensive  war  is  commonly  simplified  to 
The  Right  of  Self-defence.  This  is  one  of  the  strongholds  of  the 

*  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy. 


83 

defender  of  war,  the  almost  final  fastness  to  which  ne  retires, 
The  instinct  of  self-preservation,  it  is  sail,  is  an  instinct  of  nature ; 
and  since  this  instinct  is  implanted  by  God,  whatever  is  necessary  to 
self-preservation  is  accordant  jclzk  nis  will.  This  is  specious,  but 
like  many  other  specious  arguments,  it  is  sound  in-  its  premises, 
but,  as  I  think,  fallacious  in  its  conclusions.  That  the  instinct  ol 
self-preservation  is  an  instinct  of  nature,  is  clear — that,  because 
it  is  an  instinct  of  nature,  we  have  a  right  to  kill  other  men,  is 
not  clear. 

The  fallacy  of  the  whole  argument  appears  to  consist  in  this, — • 
that  it  assumes  that  an  instinct  of  nature  is  a  law  of  paramount 
authority.  God  has  implanted  in  the  human  system  various  pro- 
pensities or  instincts,  of  which  the  purposes  are  wise.  These  pro- 
pensities tend  in  their  own  nature  to  abuse ;  and  when  gratified 
or  followed  to  excess,  they  become  subversive  of  the  purposes  of 
the  wisdom  which  implanted  them,  and  destructive  of  the  welfare 
of  mankind.  He  has  therefore  instituted  a  superior  law,  sanc- 
tioned by  his  immediate  authority :  by  this  law,  we  are  required 
to  regulate  these  propensities.  The  question  therefore  is,  not 
whether  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  is  implanted  by  nature 
but  whether  Christianity  has  restricted  its  operation.  By  this, 
and  by  this  only,  the  question  is  to  be  determined.  Now  he  who 
will  be  at  the  trouble  of  making  the  inquiry,  will  find  that  a  regu- 
lation of  the  instincts  of  nature,  and  a  restriction  of  their  exercise, 
is  a  prominent  object  of  the  Christian  morality ;  and  I  think  it  is 
plain  that  this  regulation  and  restriction  apply  to  the  instinct 
before  us.  That  some  of  these  propensities  are  to  be  restrained 
is  certain.  One  of  the  most  powerful  instincts  of  our  nature,  is 
an  affection  to  which  the  regulating  precepts  of  Christianity  are 
peculiarly  directed.  I  do  not  maintain  that  any  natural  instinct 
is  to  be  eradicated,  but  that  all  of  them  are  to  be  regulated  and 
restrained ;  and  I  maintain  this  of  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion. 

The  establishment  of  this  position  is,  indeed,  the  great  object  of 
the  present  inquiry.  What  are  the  dispositions  and  actions  to 
which  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  prompts,  but  actions  and 
dispositions  which  Christianity  forbids?  They  are  non-forbearance, 
resistance,  retaliation  of  injuries.  The  truth  is,  Ijhat  it  is  to 
defence  that  the  peaceable  precepts  of  Christianity  are  directed 


84 

Offence  appears  not  to  have  even  suggested  itself.  It  is  "  Resist 
not  evil ;"  it  is  "  Overcome  evil  with  good ;"  it  is  "  Do  good  to 
them  that  hate  you ;"  it  is  "  Love  your  enemies ;"  it  is  "  Render 
not  evil  for  evil;"  it  is  "  Whoso  smiteth  tliee  on  one  cheek"  All 
this  supposes  previous  offence,  or  injury,  or  violence ;  and  it  is 
then  that  forbearance  is  enjoined. 

"  The  chief  aim,"  says  a  judicious  author,  "  of  those  who  argue 
in  behalf  of  defensive  war,  is  directed  at  the  passions  ;"*  and 
accordingly,  the  case  of  an  assassin  will  doubtless  be  brought 
against  me.  I  shall  be  asked — Suppose  a  ruffian  breaks  into 
your  house,  and  rushes  into  your  room  with  his  arm  lifted  to 
murder  you,  do  you  not  believe  that  Christianity  allows  you  to 
kill  him  ?  This  is  the  last  refuge  of  the  cause  :  my  answer  to  it 
is  explicit — /  do  not  believe  it. 

I  have  referred  to  this  utmost  possible  extremity,  because  I  am 
willing  to  meet  objections  of  whatever  nature,  and  because,  by 
stating  this,  which  is  enforced  by  all  our  prejudices  and  all  our 
instincts,  I  shall  at  least  show  that  I  give  to  those  who  differ  from 
me,  a  fair,  an  open,  and  a  candid  recognition  of  all  the  conse- 
quences of  my  principles.  I  would,  however,  beg  the  same  can- 
dour of  the  reader,  and  remind  him,  that  were  they  unable  to 
abide  this  test,  the  case  of  the  ruffian  has  little  practical  reference 
to  war.  T  remind  him  of  this,  not  because  I  doubt  whether  our 
principles  can  be  supported,  but  because,  if  he  should  think  that 
in  this  case  I  do  not  support  them,  he  will  yet  recollect  that  very 
few  wars  are  proved  to  be  lawful. — Of  the  wars  which  are  prose- 
cuted, some  are  simply  wars  of  aggression ;  some  are  for  the 
maintenance  of  a  balance  of  power;  some  are  in  assertion  of 
technical  rights,  and  some,  undoubtedly  to  repel  invasion.  The 
last  are  perhaps  the  fewest ;  and  of  these  only  it  can  be  said  that 
they  bear  any  analogy  whatever  to  the  case  which  is  supposed  ; 
and  even  in  these,  the  analogy  is  seldom  complete.  It  has  rarely 
indeed  happened  that  wars  have  been  undertaken  simply  for  the 
preservation  of  life,  and  that  no  other  alternative  has  remained 
to  a  people,  than  to  kill  or  to  be  killed.  And  let  it  be  remembered, 
that  unless  this  alternative  only  remains,  the  case  of  the  ruffian  is 
irrelevant ;  it  applies  not,  practically  to  the  subject. 

*  "The  Lawfulness  of  Defensive  War  impartially  considered,  by  a  Member  of 
tl.e  Church  of  England." 


85 

I  do  not  know  what  those  persons  mean,  who  say,  that  we  are 
authorized  to  kill  an  assassin  by  the  law  of  nature.  Principles 
like  this,  heedlessly  assumed,  as  of  self-evident  truth,  are,  I 
believe,  often  the  starting-post  of  our  errors,  the  point  of  diver- 
gency from  rectitude,  from  which  our  after  obliquities  proceed. 
Some  men  seem  to  talk  of  the  laws  of  nature,  as  if  nature  were  a 
legislatress  who  had  sat  and  framed  laws  for  the  government  of 
mankind.  Nature  makes  no  laws.  A  law  implies  a  legislator ; 
and  there  is  no  legislator  upon  the  principles  of  human  duty,  but 
God.  If,  by  the  "  law  of  nature,"  is  meant  any  thing  of  which  the 
sanctions  or  obligations  are  different  from  those  of  revelation,  it  is 
obvious  that  we  have  set  up  a  moral  system  of  our  own,  and  in 
opposition  to  that  which  has  been  established  by  Heaven.  If  we 
mean  by  the  "  law  of  nature,"  nothing  but  that  which  is  accordant 
with  revelation,  to  what  purpose  do  we  refer  to  it  at  all  ?  I  do  not 
suppose  that  any  sober  moralist  will  statedly  advance  the  laws  of 
nature  in  opposition  to  the  laws  of  God ;  but  I  think  that  to 
advance  them  at  all — that  to  refer  to  any  principle  or  law,  in 
determination  of  our  duty,  irrespectively  of  the  simple  will  of 
God,  is  always  dangerous :  for  there  will  be  many,  who,  when 
they  are  referred  for  direction  to  such  law  or  principle,  will 
regard  it,  in  their  practice,  as  a  final  standard  of  truth.  I  believe 
that  a  reference  to  the  laws  of  nature  has  seldom  illustrated  our 
duties,  and  never  induced  us  to  perform  them ;  and  that  it  has 
hitherto  answered  little  other  purpose  than  that  of  amusing  the 
lovers  of  philosophical  morality. 

The  mode  of  proving,  or  of  stating,  the  right  to  kill  an  assassin, 
is  this : — "  There  is  one  case  in  which  all  extremities  are  justifi- 
able ;  namely,  when  our  life  is  assaulted,  and  it  becomes  neces- 
sary for  our  preservation  to  kill  the  assailant.  This  is  evident  in 
a  state  of  nature ;  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  we  are  bound  to 
prefer  the  aggressor's  life  to  our  own ;  that  is  to  say,  to  love  our 
enemy  better  than  ourselves,  which  can  never  be  a  debt  of  justice, 
nor  any  where  appears  to  be  a  duty  of  charity."*  If  I  were  dis- 
posed to  hold  argumentation  like  this,  I  w^ould  say,  that  although 
we  may  not  be  required  to  love  our  enemies  better  than  ourselves 
we  are  required  to  love  them  as  ourselves ;  and  that  in  the  sup- 

*  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy. 


86 

posed  case,  it  still  would  be  a  question  equally  balanced,  which 
life  ought  to  be  sacrificed ;  for  it  is  quite  clear,  that  if  we  kill  the 
assailant,  we  love  him  less  than  ourselves,  which  may,  perhaps, 
militate  a  little  against  "  a  duty  of  charity."  Put  the  truth  is, 
that  the  question  is  not  whether  we  should  love  our  enemy  better 
than  ourselves,  but  whether  we  should  sacrifice  the  laws  of 
Christianity  in  order  to  preserve  our  lives — whether  we  should 
prefer  the  interests  of  religion  to  our  own — whether  we  should  be 
willing  to  "  lose  our  life,  for  Christ's  sake  and  the  gospel' s." 

This  system  of  counter-crime  is  of  very  loose  tendency.  The 
assailant  violates  his  duties  by  attempting  to  kill  me,  and  I,  there- 
fore, am  to  violate  mine  by  actually  killing  him.  Is  his  meditated 
crime,  then,  a  justification  of  my  perpetrated  crime?  In  the  case 
of  a  condemned  Christian  martyr  who  was  about  to  be  led  to  the 
stake,  it  is  supposable,  that  by  having  contrived  a  mine,  he  may 
preserve  his  life  by  suddenly  firing  it  and  blowing  his  persecutors 
into  the  air.  Would  Christianity  justify  the  act  ?  Or  what  should 
we  say  of  him  if  he  committed  it  1  We  should  say  that  whatever 
his  faith  might  be,  his  practice  was  very  unsound ;  that  he  might, 
believe  the  gospel,  but  that  he  certainly  did  not  fulfil  its  duties. 
Now  I  contend  that  for  all  the  purposes  of  the  argument,  the 
cases  of  the  martyr  and  the  assaulted  person  are  precisely  similar. 
He  who  was  about  to  be  led  to  the  stake,  and  he  who  was  about 
to  lose  his  life  by  the  assassin,  are  both  required  to  regulate  their 
conduct  by  the  same  laws,  and  are  both  to  be  prepared  to  offer 
up  their  lives  in  testimony  of  their  allegiance  to  Christianity :  the 
one  in  allegiance  to  her,  in  opposition  to  the  violation  of  her  moral 
principles  and  her  moral  spirit ;  and  the  other,  in  opposition  to 
errors  in  belief  or  to  ecclesiastical  corruptions.  It  is  therefore  in 
vain  to  tell  me  that  the  victim  of  persecution  would  have  suf- 
fered for  religion's  sake,  for  so  also  would  the  victim  of  the 
ruffian.  There  is  nothing  in  the  sanctions  of  Christianity  which 
implies  that  obedience  to  her  moral  law  is  of  less  consequence 
than  an  adherence  to  her  faith ;  nor,  as  it  respects  the  welfare  of 
the  world,  does  the  consequence  appear  to  be  less ;  for  he  who, 
by  his  fidelity  to  Christianity,  promotes  the  diffusion  of  Christian 
dispositions  and  of  peace,  contributes,  perhaps,  as  much  to  the 
happiness  of  mankind,  as  he  who  by  the  same  fidelity  recommends 
the  acceptance  of  an  accurate  creed. 


87 

A  great  deal  hangs  upon  this  question,  and  it  is  theiefore 
necessary  to  pursue  it  farther.  We  say,  then,  first — that  Christi- 
anity has  not  declared  that  we  are  ever  at  liberty  to  kill  othei 
men :  secondly — that  she  virtually  prohibits  it,  because  her  princi- 
ples and  the  practice  of  our  Saviour  are  not  compatible  with  it, 
and,  thirdly — that  if  Christianity  allowed  it,  she  would  in  effect 
and  in  practice  allow  war,  without  restriction  to  defence  of  life. 

The  first  of  these  positions  will  probably  not  be  disputed ;  and 
upon  the  second,  that  Christianity  virtually  prohibits  the  destruc- 
tion of  human  life,  it  has  been  the  principal  object  of  this  essay 
to  insist.  I  would,  therefore,  only  observe,  that  the  conduct  of  the 
Founder  of  Christianity,  when  his  enemies  approached  him 
"  with  swords  and  staves"  appears  to  apply  strictly  to  self-defence. 
These  armed  men  came  with  the  final  purpose  of  murdering  him  ; 
but  although  he  knew  this  purpose,  he  would  not  suffer  the 
assailants  to  be  killed  or  even  to  be  wounded.  Christ,  therefore, 
would  not  preserve  his  own  life  by  sacrificing  another's. 

But  we  say,  thirdly,  that  if  Christianity  allows  us  to  kill  one 
another,  in  self-defence,  she  allows  war,  without  restriction  to 
self-defence.  Let  us  try  what  would  have  been  the  result  if  the 
Christian  Scriptures  had  thus  placed  human  life  at  our  disposal : 
suppose  they  had  said — You  may  kill  a  ruffian  in  your  own  defence, 
but  you  may  not  enter  into  a  defensive  war.  The  prohibition  \vould 
admit,  not  of  some  exceptions  to  its  application — the  exceptions 
would  be  so  many,  that  no  prohibition  would  be  left ;  because 
there  is  no  practical  limit  to  the  right  of  self-defence,  until  we 
arrive  at  defensive  war.  If  one  man  may  kill  one,  two  may  kill 
two,  and  ten  may  kill  ten,  and  an  army  may  kill  an  army : — and 
this  is  defensive  war.  Supposing,  again,  the  Christian  Scriptures 
had  said,  an  army  may  fight  in  its  own  defence,  but  not  for  any 
other  purpose.  We  do  not  say  that  the  exceptions  to  this  rule 
would  be  so  many  as  wholly  to  nullify  the  rule  itself;  but  we  say 
that  whoever  will  attempt  to  apply  it  in  practice,  will  find  that 
he  has  a  very  wide  range  of  justifiable  warfare ;  a  range  that 
will  embrace  many  more  wars  than  moralists,  laxer  than  we 
shall  suppose  him  to  be,  are  willing  to  defend.  If  an  army  may 
fight  in  defence  of  their  own  lives,  they  may  and  they  must  fight 
in  defence  of  the  lives  of  others :  if  they  may  fight  in  defence  of 
the  lives  of  others,  they  will  fight  in  defence  of  their  property :  if 


88 

in  defence  of  property,  they  will  fight  in  defence  of  political 
rights :  if  in  defence  of  rights,  they  will  fight  in  promotion  of 
interests :  if  in  promotion  of  interests,  they  will  fight  in  promotion 
of  their  glory  and  their  crimes.  Now  let  any  man  of  honesty 
look  over  the  gradations  by  which  we  arrive  at  this  climax,  and 
I  believe  he  will  find  that,  in  practice,  no  curb  can  be  placed  upon 
the  conduct  of  an  army  until  they  reach  it.  There  is,  indeed,  a 
wide  distance  between  fighting  in  defence  of  life  and  fighting  in 
furtherance  of  our  crimes ;  but  the  steps  which  lead  from  one  to 
the  other  will  follow  in  inevitable  succession.  I  know  that  the 
letter  of  our  rule  excludes  it,  but  I  know  the  rule  will  be  a  letter 
only.  It  is  very  easy  for  us  to  sit  in  our  studies,  and  to  point  the 
commas,  and  semicolons,  and  periods  of  the  soldier's  career ;  it  is 
very  easy  for  us  to  say  he  shall  stop  at  defence  of  life,  or  at  pro 
tection  of  property,  or  at  the  support  of  rights ;  but  armies  will 
never  listen  to  us — we  shall  be  only  the  Xerxes  of  morality 
throwing  our  idle  chains  into  the  tempestuous  ocean  of  slaughter. 

What  is  the  testimony  of  experience  ?  When  nations  aro 
mutually  exasperated,  and  armies  are  levied,  and  battles  are 
fought,  does  not  every  one  know  that  with  whatever  motives  of 
defence  one  party  may  have  begun  the  contest,  both,  in  turn, 
become  aggressors  ?  In  the  fury  of  slaughter,  soldiers  do  not 
attend,  they  cannot  attend,  to  questions  of  aggression.  Their 
business  is  destruction,  and  their  business  they  will  perform.  If 
the  army  of  defence  obtains  success,  it  soon  becomes  an  army  of 
aggression.  Having  repelled  the  invader,  it  begins  to  punish 
him.  If  a  war  is  once  begun,  it  is  vain  to  think  of  distinctions  of 
aggression  and  defence.  Moralists  may  talk  of  distinctions,  but 
soldiers  will  make  none  ;  and  none  can  be  made  ;  it  is  without  the 
limits  of  possibility. 

But,  indeed,  what  is  defensive  war  ?  A  celebrated  moralist 
defines  it  to  be,  war  undertaken  in  consequence  of "  an  injury 
perpetrated,  attempted,  or  feared  ;"  which  shows  with  sufficient 
clearness  how  little  the  assassin  concerns  the  question,  for  fear 
respecting  life  does  not  enter  into  the  calculation  of "  injuries." 
So,  then,  if  we  fear  some  injury  to  our  purses,  or  to  our  "  honour," 
we  are  allowed  to  send  an  army  to  the  country  that  gives  us 
fear,  and  to  slaughter  its  inhabitants ;  and  this,  we  are  told,  is 
defensive  war.  By  this  system  of  reasoning,  which  has  been  hap- 


89 

pily  called  "  martial  logic,"  there  will  be  little  difficulty  in  prov.'ng 
any  war  to  be  defensive.  Now  we  say  that  if  Christianity  allows 
defensive  war,  she  allows  all  war — except  indeed  that  of  simple 
aggression;  and  by  the  rules  of  this  morality,  the  aggressor  is 
difficult  of  discovery  ;  for  he  whom  we  choose  to  "  fear"  may  say 
that  he  had  previous  "  fear"  of  us,  and  that  his  "  fear"  prompted 
the  hostile  symptoms  which  made  us  "fear"  again.  The  truth  is, 
that  to  attempt  to  make  any  distinctions  upon  the  subject  is  vain. 
War  must  be  wholly  forbidden,  or  allowed  without  restriction  to 
defence  ;  for  no  definitions  of  lawful  or  unlawful  war  will  be,  or 
can  be,  attended  to.  If  the  principles  of  Christianity,  in  any  case, 
or  for  any  purpose,  allow  armies  to  meet  and  to  slaughter  one 
another,  her  principles  will  never  conduct  us  to  the  period  which 
prophecy  has  assured  us  they  shall  produce.  There  is  no  hope  of 
an  eradication  of  war  but  by  an  absolute  and  total  abandonment 
of  it.* 

What  then  is  the  principle  for  which  we  contend  ?  An  unrea- 
soning reliance  upon  Providence  for  defence,  in  all  those  cases  in 
which  we  should  violate  His  laws  by  defending  ourselves.  The  prin- 
ciple can  claim  a  species  of  merit  which  must  at  least  be  denied 
to  some  systems  of  morality — that  of  simplicity,  of  easiness  of 
apprehension,  of  adaptation  to  every  understanding,  of  applicabil- 
ity to  every  circumstance  of  life. 

If  a  wisdom  which  we  acknowledge  to  be  unerring,  has  deter- 
mined and  declared  that  any  given  conduct  is  right,  and  that  it  is 
good  for  man,  it  appears  preposterous  and  irreverent  to  argue 
that  another  can  be  better.  The  Almighty  certainly  knows  our 
interests,  and  if  he  has  not  directed  us  in  the  path  which  pro- 
motes them,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that  he  has  voluntarily 
directed  us  amiss. — Will  the  advocate  of  war  abide  this  conclu- 
sion ?  And  if  he  will  not,  how  will  he  avoid  the  opposite  conclu- 
sion, that  the  path  of  forbearance  is  the  path  of  expediency  1 

*  It  forms  no  part  of  a  Christian's  business  to  inquire  why  his  religion  forbida 
any  given  actions,  although  I  know  not  that  the  inquiry  is  reprehensible.  In  the 
case  of  personal  attack,  possibly  Christianity  may  decide,  that  if  one  of  two  men 
must  be  hurried  from  the  world,  of  whom  the  first  is  so  profligate  as  to  assault  the 
life  of  his  fellow,  and  the  other  is  so  virtuous  as  to  prefer  the  loss  of  life  to  the 
abandonment  of  Christian  principles — it  is  more  consistent  with  her  will  that  the 
good  should  be  transferred  to  his  hoped  felicity,  than  that  the  bad  should  be  cca« 
eigned  to  punishment. 

12 


90 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  position  of  very  simple  truth,  that  it  be- 
comes an  erring  being  to  regulate  his  actions  by  an  acquiescent 
reference  to  an  unerring  will.  That  it  is  necessary  for  one  of 
these  erring  beings  formally  to  insist  upon  this  truth,  and  syste- 
matically to  prove  it  to  his  fellows,  may  reasonably  be  a  subject 
of  grief  and  of  shame.  But  the  hardihood  of  guilt  denies  the 
truth,  and  the  speculativeness  of  philosophy  practically  supersedes 
it; — and  the  necessity  therefore  remains. 

We  have  seen  that  the  duties  of  the  religion  which  God  has 
imparted  to  mankind  require  irresistance  ;  and  surely  it  is  rea- 
sonable to  believe,  3ven  without  a  reference  to  experience,  that 
he  will  make  our  irresistance  subservient  to  our  interests — that  if, 
for  the  purpose  of  conforming  to  his  will,  we  subject  ourselves  to 
difficulty  or  danger,  he  will  protect  us  in  our  obedience,  and  di- 
rect it  to  our  benefit — that  if  he  requires  us  not  to  be  concerned  in 
war,  he  will  preserve  us  in  peace — that  he  will  not  desert  those 
who  have  no  other  protection,  and  who  have  abandoned  all  other 
protection  because  they  confide  in  his  alone. 

And  if  we  refer  to  experience,  we  shall  find  that  the  reasona- 
bleness of  this  confidence  is  confirmed.  There  have  been  thou- 
sands who  have  confided  in  Heaven  in  opposition  to  all  their  ap- 
parent interests,  but  of  these  thousands  has  one  eventually  said 
that  he  repented  his  confidence,  or  that  he  reposed  in  vain  ? — 
"  He  that  will  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  and  the  gospel's,  the  same 
shall  find  it."  If  it  be  said  that  we  take  futurity  into  the  calcula- 
tion, in  our  estimate  of  interest,  I  answer — So  we  ought.  Who  is 
the  man  that  \vould  exclude  futurity  ;  or  what  are  his  princi- 
ples ?  I  do  not  comprehend  the  foundation  of  those  objections  to  a 
reference  to  futurity  which  are  thus  flippantly  made.  Are  we 
not  immortal  beings  ?  Have  we  not  interests  beyond  the  pre- 
sent life  ?  It  is  a  deplorable  temper  of  mind  which  would  di- 
minish the  frequency,  or  the  influence,  of  our  references  to  fu- 
turity. The  prospects  of  the  future  ought  to  predominate  over 
the  sensations  of  the  present.  And  if  the  attainment  of  this  pre- 
dominance be  difficult,  let  us  at  least,  not  voluntarily,  argumen- 
tatively,  persuade  ourselves  to  forego  the  prospect,  or  to  dimin- 
ish its  influence. 

Yet,  even  in  reference  only  to  the  present  state  of  existence,  I 
believe  we  shall  find  that  the  testimony  of  experience  is,  that  for 
bearance  is  most  conducive  to  our  interests. 


91 

Integer  vitae  scelerisque  purus 
Non  eget  Mauri  jaculis  neque  arcu, 
Nee  venenatis  gravida  sagittis, 

Fusee,  pharetra. 

HORACE. 

And  the  same  truth  is  delivered  by  much  higher  authority  than 
that  of  Horace,  and  in  much  stronger  language  : — "  If  a  man's 
ways  please  the  Lord,  he  maketh  even  his  enemies  to  be  at  peace 
with  hi?7i." 

The  reader  of  American  history  will  recollect  that  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  last  century,  a  desultory  and  most  dreadful  warfare 
was  carried  on  by  the  natives  against  the  European  settlers  ;  n 
warfare  that  was  provoked,  as  such  warfare  has  almost  always 
originally  been,  by  the  injuries  and  violence  of  the  Christians. 
The  mode  of  destruction  was  secret  and  sudden.  The  barbarians 
sometimes  lay  in  wait  for  those  who  might  come  within  their 
reach  on  the  highway  or  in  the  fields,  and  shot  them  without 
warning;  and  sometimes  they  attacked  the  Europeans  in  their 
houses,  "  scalping  some,  and  knocking  out  the  brains  of  others." 
From  this  horrible  warfare,  the  inhabitants  sought  safety  by 
abandoning  their  homes,  and  retiring  to  fortified  places,  or  to 
the  neighborhood  of  garrisons ;  and  those  whom  necessity  still 
compelled  to  pass  beyond  the  limits  of  such  protection,  provided 
themselves  with  arms  for  their  defence.  But  amidst  this  dread- 
ful desolation  and  universal  terror,  the  Society  of  Friends,  who 
were  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  whole  population,  were 
steadfast  to  their  principles.  They  would  neither  retire  to  garri- 
sons, nor  provide  themselves  with  arms.  They  remained  openly 
in  the  country,  whilst  the  rest  were  flying  to  the  forts.  They 
still  pursued  their  occupations  in  the  fields  or  at  their  homes, 
without  a  weapon  either  for  annoyance  or  defence.  And  what 
was  their  fate  ?  They  lived  in  security  and  quiet.  The  habita- 
tion, which  to  his  armed  neighbor,  was  the  scene  of  murder  and 
of  the  scalping  knife,  was  to  the  unarmed  Quaker  a  place  of 
safety  and  of  peace. 

Three  of  the  Society  were  however  killed.  And  who  were  they  ? 
They  were  three  who  abandoned  their  principles.  Two  of  these 
victims  were  men,  who,  in  the  simple  language  of  the  narrator, 
**  used  to  go  to  their  labor  without  any  weapons,  and  trusted  to 


92 

the  Almighty,  and  depended  on  his  providence  to  protect  them  (it 
being  their  principle  not  to  use  weapons  of  war  to  offend  others 
or  to  defend  themselves) :  but  a  spirit  of  distrust  taking  place  in 
their  minds,  they  took  weapons  of  war  to  defend  themselves,  and 
the  Indians,  who  had  seen  them  several  times  without  them,  and 
let  them  alone,  saying  they  were  peaceable  men  and  hurt  nobody, 
therefore  they  would  not  hurt  them, — now  seeing  them  have 
guns,  and  supposing  they  designed  to  kill  the  Indians,  they  there- 
fore shot  the  men  dead."  The  third  whose  life  was  sacrificed 
was  a  woman,  who  "  had  remained  in  her  habitation,"  not  think- 
ing herself  warranted  in  going  "  to  a  fortified  place  for  preser- 
vation, neither  she,  her  son,  nor  daughter,  nor  to  take  thither  the 
little  ones  ;  but  the  poor  woman  after  some  time  began  to  let  in 
a  slavish  fear,  and  advised  her  children  to  go  with  her  to  a  fort 
not  far  from  their  dwelling*"  She  went ; — and  shortly  afterwards 
"  the  bloody,  cruel  Indians  lay  by  the  way,  and  killed  her."* 

The  fate  of  the  Quakers  during  the  rebellion  in  Ireland  was 
nearly  similar.  It  is  well  known  that  the  rebellion  was  a  time 
not  only  of  open  war  but  of  cold-blooded  murder ;  of  the 
utmost  fury  of  bigotry,  and  the  utmost  exasperation  of  re- 
venge. Yet  the  Quakers  •  were  preserved  even  to  a  proverb ; 
and  when  strangers  passed  through  streets  of  ruin,  and  observed 
a  house  standing  uninjured  and  alone,  they  would  sometimes 
point  and  say — "  That  doubtless,  was  the  house  of  a  Quaker." 

It  were  to  no  purpose  to  say,  in  opposition  to  the  evidence  of 
these  facts,  that  they  form  an  exception  to  a  general  rule.  The 
exception  to  the  rule  consists  in  the  trial  of  the  experiment  of 
non-resistance,  not  in  its  success.  Neither  were  it  to  any  pur- 


*  See  "  Select  Anecdotes,  &c.,  by  John  Barclay,"  pp.  71 — 79.  In  this  little  vol- 
ume I  have  found  some  illustrations  of  the  policy  of  the  principle  which  we  main- 
tain in  the  case  of  a  personal  attack.  Barclay,  the  celebrated  Apologist,  was  at- 
tacked by  a  highwayman.  He  made  no  other  resistance  than  a  calm  expostulation. 
The  felon  dropped  his  presented  pistol,  and  offered  no  farther  violence.  A  Leonard 
Fell  was  assaulted  by  a  highway  robber,  who  plundered  him  of  his  money  and  his 
horse,  and  afterwards  threatened  to  blow  out  his  brains.  Fell  solemnly  spoke  to 
the  robber  on  the  wickedness  of  his  life.  The  man  was  astonished : — he  declared 
he  would  take  neither  his  money  nor  his  horse,  and  returned  them  both. — "  If  thine 
enemy  hunger,  feed  him, — for  in  so  doing  thou  shaltheap  coals  of  fire  upon  his 
head." 


93 

pose  to  say,  that  the  savages  of  America  or  the  desperadoes  of 
Ireland  spared  the  Quakers  because  they  v?ere  pi  eviously  known 
to  be  an  unoffending  people,  or  because  the  Quakers  had  previ- 
ously gained  the  love  of  these  by  forbearance  or  good  offices : — 
\ve  concede  all  this  ;  it  is  the  very  argument  which  we  maintain, 
We  say  that. a  uniform,  undevwting  regard  to  the  peaceable  ob- 
ligations of  Christianity,  becomes  the  safeguard  of  those  who  practise 
it.  We  venture  to  maintain  that  no  reason  whatever  can  be  as- 
signed why  the  fate  of  the  Quakers  would  not  be  the  fate  of  all 
who  should  adopt  their  conduct.  No  reason  can  be  assigned 
why,  if  their  number  had  been  multiplied  ten-fold  or  a  hundred- 
fold,  they  would  not  have  been  preserved.  If  there  be  such  a 
reason,  let  us  hear  it.  The  American  and  Irish  Quakers  were,  to 
the  rest  of  the  community,  what  one  nation  is  to  a  continent. 
And  we  must  require  the  advocate  of  war  to  produce  (that  which 
has  never  yet  been  produced)  a  reason  for  believing  that,  al- 
though individuals  exposed  to  destruction  were  preserved,  a  na- 
tion exposed  to  destruction  would  be  destroyed.  We  do  not,  how- 
ever, say,  that  if  a  people,  in  the  customary  state  of  men's  pas- 
sions, should  be  assailed  by  an  invader,  and  should,  on  a  sudden, 
choose  to  declare  that  they  would  try  whether  Providence  would 
protect  them — of  such  a  people,  we  do  not  say  that  they  would 
experience  protection,  and  that  none  of  them  would  be  killed. 
But  we  say  that  the  evidence  of  experience  is,  that  a  people 
who  habitually  regard  the  obligations  of  Christianity  in  their 
conduct  towards  other  men,  and  who  steadfastly  reftise,  through 
whatever  consequences,  to  engage  in  acts  of  hostility,  will  expe- 
rience protection  in  their  peacefulness :  and  it  matters  nothing  to 
the  argument,  whether  we  refer  that  protection  to  the  immediate 
agency  of  Providence,  or  to  the  influence  of  such  conduct  upon 
the  minds  of  men. 

Such  has  been  the  experience  of  the  unoffending  and  unre- 
sisting, in  individual  life.  A  national  example  of  a  refusal  to 
bear  arms  has  only  once  been  exhibited  to  the  world  ;  but  that 
one  example  has  proved,  so  far  as  its  political  circumstances 
enabled  it  to  prove,  all  that  humanity  could  desire,  and  all  that 
skepticism  could  demand,  in  favor  of  our  argument. 

It  has  been  the  ordinary  practice  of  those  who  have  colonized 
distant  countries^  lo  force  a  footing,  or  to  maintain  it,  with  the 


94 

sword.  One  of  the  first  objects  has  been  to  build  a  fort  and  to 
provide  a  military.  The  adventurers  became  soldiers,  and  the 
colony  was  a  garrison.  Pennsylvania  was,  however,  colonized 
by  men  who  believed  that  war  was  absolutely  incompatible  with 
Christianity,  and  who  therefore  resolved  not  to  practise  it.  Hav- 
ing determined  not  to  fight,  they  maintained  no  soldiers  and  pos- 
sessed no  arms.  They  planted  themselves  in  a  country  that  was  sur- 
rounded by  savages,  and  by  savages  who  knew  they  were  unarmed. 
If  easiness  of  conquest,  or  incapability  of  defence,  could  subject 
them  to  outrage,  the  Pennsylvanians  might  have  been  the  very 
sport  of  violence.  Plunderers  might  have  robbed  them  without 
retaliation,  and  armies  might  have  slaughtered  them  without  re- 
sistance. If  they  did  not  give  a  temptation  to  outrage,  no  temp- 
tation could  be  given.  But  these  were  the  people  who  possessed 
their  country  in  security,  whilst  those  around  them  were  trem- 
bling for  their  existence.  This  was  a  land  of  peace,  whilst  every 
other  was  a  land  of  war.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable,  although 
it  is  extraordinary — they  were  in  no  need  of  arms  because  theij 
would  not  use  them. 

These  Indians  were  sufficiently  ready  to  commit  outrages  upon 
other  states,  and  often  visited  them  with  desolation  and  slaugh- 
ter; with  that  sort  of  desolation,  and  that  sort  of  slaughter, 
which  might  be  expected  from  men  whom  civilization  had  not 
reclaimed  from  cruelty,  and  whom  religion  had  not  awed  into 
forbearance.  "  But  whatever  the  quarrels  of  the  Pennsylvanian 
Indians  were  with  others,  they  uniformly  respected,  and  held  as 
it  were  sacred,  the  territories  of  William  Penn."*  "  The  Pennsyl- 
vanians never  lost  man,  woman,  or  child  by  them,  which  neither 
the  colony  of  Maryland,  nor  that  of  Virginia  could  say,  no  more 
than  the  great  colony  of  New  England."f 

The  security  and  quiet  of  Pennsylvania  was  not  a  transient 
freedom  from  war,  such  as  might  accidentally  happen  to  any 
nation.  She  continued  to  enjoy  it  "  ior  more  than  seventy  years,"  J 
and  subsisted  in  the  midst  of  six  Indian  nations, "  without  so  much 
as  a  militia  for  her  defence."§  "The  Pennsylvanians  became 
armed,  though  without  arms ;  they  became  strong,  though  with- 
out strength  ;  they  became  safe,  without  the  ordinary  means  of 

*  Clarkson.  f  Oldmixon,  Anno  1708  t  Pr^ud.  \  OJdmixon 


95 

safety.  The  constable's  staff  was  the  only  instrument  of  author- 
ity amongst  them  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century,  and  never, 
during  the  administration  of  Penn  or  that  of  his  proper  success- 
ors, was  there  a  quarrel  or  a  war."* 

I  cannot  wonder  that  these  people  were  not  molested — extra- 
ordinary and  unexampled  as  their  security  was.  There  is  some- 
thing so  noble  in  this  perfect  confidence  in  the  Supreme  Pro- 
tector, in  this  utter  exclusion  of  "  slavish  fear,"  in  this  voluntary 
relinquishment  of  the  means  of  injury  or  of  defence,  that  I  do 
not  wonder  that  even  ferocity  could  be  disarmed  by  such  virtue. 
A  people,  generously  living  without  arms,  amidst  nations  of 
warriors !  Who  would  attack  a  people  such  as  this  ?  There 
are  few  men  so  abandoned  as  not  to  respect  such  confidence. 
It  were  a  peculiar  and  an  unusual  intensity  of  wickedness  that 
would  not  even  revere  it. 

And  when  was  the  security  of  Pennsylvania  molested,  and  its 
peace  destroyed? — When  the  men  who  had  directed  its  counsels 
and  who  would  not  engage  in  war,  were  outvoted  in  its  legislature  : 
when  they  who  supposed  that  there  was  greater  security  in  the  sword 
than  in  Christianity,  became  the  predominating  body.  From  that 
hour,  the  Pennsylvanians  transferred  their  confidence  in  Christian 
principles  to  a  confidence  in  their  arms ;  and  from  that  hour  to 
the  present  they  have  been  subject  to  war. 

Such  is  the  evidence  derived  from  a  national  example  of  the 
consequences  of  a  pursuit  of  the  Christian  policy  in  relation  to 
war.  Here  are  a  people  who  absolutely  refused  to  fight,  and 
who  incapacitated  themselves  for  resistance  by  refusing  to  pos- 
sess arms,  and  this  was  the  people  whose  land,  amidst  surround- 
ing broils  and  slaughter,  was  selected  as  a  land  of  security  and 
peace.  The  only  national  opportunity  which  the  virtue  of  the 
Christian  world  has  afforded  us  of  ascertaining  the  safety  of  rely- 
ing upon  God  for  defence,  has  determined  that  it  is  safe. 

If  the  evidence  which  we  possess  do  not  satisfy  us  of  the  expe- 
diency of  confiding  in  God,  what  evidence  do  we  ask,  or  what  can 
we  receive  ?  We  have  his  promise  that  he  will  protect  those 
who  abandon  their  seeming  interests  in  the  performance  of  his 
will,  and  we  have  the  testimony  of  those  who  have  confided  in 

*  Clarkson,  Life  of  Penn. 


96 


him,  that  he  has  protected  them.  Can  the  advocate  of  war  pro- 
duce one  single  instance  in  the  lii story  of  man,  of  a  person  who 
had  given  an  unconditional  obedience  to  the  will  of  heaven  and 
who  did  not  find  that  his  conduct  was  wise  as  well  as  virtuous, 
that  it  accorded  with  his  interests  as  well  as  with  his  duty  ?  We  ask 
the  same  question  in  relation  to  the  peculiar  obligations  to  irre- 
sistance.  Where  is  the  man  who  regrets,  that  in  observance  of 
the  forbearing  duties  of  Christianity,  he  consigned  his  preserva- 
tion to  the  superintendence  of  God  ? — And  the  solitary  national 
example  that  is  before  us,  confirms  the  testimony  of  private  life ; 
for  there  is  sufficient  reason  for  believing  that  no  nation,  in  mo- 
dern ages,  has  possessed  so  large  a  portion  of  virtue  or  of  happi- 
ness as  Pennsylvania  before  it  had  seen  human  blood.  I  would 
therefore  repeat  the  question — What  evidence  do  we  ask,  or  can 
we  receive  ? 

This  is  the  point  from  which  we  wander — WE  DO  NOT  BELIEVE 
IN  THE  PROVIDENCE  OP  GOD.  When  this  statement  is  formally  made 
to  us,  we  think,  perhaps,  that  it  is  not  true ;  but  our  practice  is 
an  evidence  of  its  truth — for  if  we  did  believe,  we  should  also 
confide  in  it,  and  should  be  willing  to  stake  upon  it  the  conse- 
quences of  our  obedience.*  We  can  talk  with  sufficient  fluency 
of  "  trusting  in  Providence,"  but  in  the  application  of  it  to  our 
conduct  in  life,  we  know  wonderfully  little.  Who  is  it  that  con- 
fides in  Providence,  and  for  what  does  he  trust  him  ?  Does  his 
confidence  induce  him  to  set  aside  his  own  views  of  interest  and 
safety,  and  simply  to  obey  precepts  which  appear  inexpedient 
and  unsafe  ?  This  is  the  confidence  that  is  of  value,  and  of 
which  we  know  so  little.  There  are  many  who  believe  that  war 
is  disallowed  by  Christianity,  and  who  would  rejoice  that  it  were 
for  ever  abolished  ;  but  there  are  few  who  are  willing  to  main- 
tain an  undaunted  and  unyielding  stand  against  it.  They  can 
talk  of  the  loveliness  of  peace,  ay,  and  argue  against  the  lawful- 
ness of  war  ;  but  when  difficulty  or  suffering  would  be  the  conse- 
quence, thev  will  not  refuse  to  do  what  they  know  to  be  unlaw- 


"  The  dread  of  being  destroyed  by  our  enemies  if  we  do  not  go  to  war  with  them, 
is  a  plain  and  unequivocal  proof  of  our  disbelief  in  the  superintendence  of  Divine 
Providence." —  The  Lawfulness  of  defensive  War  impartially  considered ;  by  a 
Member  of  the  Church  of  England. 


97 

ful,  they  will  not  practise  the  peacefulness  which  they  say  they 
admire.  Those  who  are  ready  to  sustain  the  consequences  of  un- 
deviating  obedience  are  the  supporters  of  whom  Christianity 
stands  in  need.  She  wants  men  who  are  willing  to  suffer  for  her 
principles. 

It  is  necessary  for  us  to  know  by  what  principles  we  are  gov- 
erned. Are  we  regulated  by  the  injunctions  of  God  or  are  we 
not  ?  If  there  be  any  lesson  of  morality  which  it  is  of  importance 
to  mankind  to  learn,  and  if  there  be  any  which  they  have  not 
yet  learnt,  it  is  the  necessity  of  simply  performing  the  duties  of 
Christianity  without  reference  to  consequences.  If  we  could  per- 
suade ourselves  to  do  this,,  we  should  certainly  pass  life  with 
greater  consistency  of  conduct,  and  as  I  firmly  believe,  in  greater 
enjoyment  and  greater  peace.  The  world  has  had  many  exam- 
ples of  such  fidelity  and  confidence.  Who  have  been  the  Chris- 
tian martyrs  of  all  ages,  but  men  who  maintained  their  fidelity 
to  Christianity  through  whatever  consequences  ?  They  were 
faithful  to  the  Christian  creed ;  we  ought  to  be  faithful  to  the 
Christian  morality  ;  without  morality  the  profession  of  a  creed  is 
vain.  Nay,  wre  have  seen  that  there  have  been  martyrs  to  the 
duties  of  morality,  and  to  these  very  duties  of  peacefulness.  The 
duties  remain  the  same,  but  where  is  our  obedience  ? 

I  hope,  for  the  sake  of  his  understanding  and  his  heart,  that  the 
reader  will  not  say  I  reason  on  the  supposition  that  the  world  was 
what  it  is  not ;  and  that  although  these  duties  may  be  binding 
upon  us  when  the  world  shall  become  purer,  yet  that  we  must 
now  accommodate  ourselves  to  the  state  of  things  as  they  are. 
This  is  to  say  that  in  a  land  of  assassins,  assassination  would  be 
right.  If  no  one  begins  to  reform  his  practice,  until  others  have 
begun  before  him,  reformation  will  never  be  begun,  [f  apostles. 
or  martyrs,  or  reformers  had  "  accommodated  themselves  to  the 
existing  state  of  things,"  where  had  now  been  Christianity?  The 
business  of  reformation  belongs  to  him  who  sees  that  reformation 
is  required.  The  world  has  no  other  human  means  of  amend- 
ment. If  you  believe  that  war  is  not  allowed  by  Christianity,  it 
is  your  business  to  oppose  it ;  and  if  fear  or  distrust  should  raise 
questions  on  the  consequences,  apply  the  words  of  our  Saviour — 
*  What  is  that  to  thee  ?— Follow  thou  me." 

Our  great  misfortune  in  the  examination  of  the  duties  of  Christi- 

13 


98 

anity,  is,  that  we  do  not  contemplate  them  with  sufficient  simpli- 
city. We  do  not  estimate  them  without  some  addition  or  abate- 
ment of  our  own ;  there  is  almost  always  some  intervening 
medium.  A  sort  of  half  transparent  glass  is  hung  before  each 
individual,  which  possesses  endless  shades  of  colour  and  degrees 
of  opacity,  and  which  presents  objects  with  endless  varieties  of 
distortion.  This  glass  is  coloured  by  our  education  and  our  pas- 
sions. The  business  of  moral  culture  is  to  render  it  transparent. 
The  perfection  of  the  perceptive  part  of  moral  culture  is  to 
remove  it  from  before  us. — Simple  obedience  without  reference  to 
consequences,  is  our  great  duty.  I  know  that  philosophers  have 
told  us  otherwise :  I  know  that  we  have  been  referred,  for  the 
determination  of  our  duties,  to  calculations  of  expediency  and  of 
the  future  consequences  of  our  actions : — but  I  believe  that  in 
whatever  degree  this  philosophy  directs  us  to  forbear  an  uncon- 
ditional obedience  to  the  rules  of  our  religion,  it  will  be  found, 
that  when  Christianity  shall  advance  in  her  purity  and  her  power, 
she  will  sweep  it  from  the  earth  with  the  besom  of  destruction. 

The  positions,  then,  which  we  have  endeavored  to  establish, 
are  these :— • 

I.  That  the  general  character  of  Christianity  is  wholly  incon- 
gruous with  war,  and  that  its  general  duties  are  incompatible 
with  it. 

II.  That  some  of  the  express  precepts  and  declaration  <  of  Jesus 
Christ  virtually  forbid  it. 

III.  That  his  practice  is  not  reconcileable  with  the  supposition  of 
its  lawfulness. 

IV.  That  the  precepts  and  practice  of  the  apostles  correspond 
with  those  of  our  Lord. 

V.  That  the  primitive  Christians  believed  that  Christ  had  for- 
bidden war ;  and  that  some  of  them  suffered  death  in  affirm- 
ance of  this  belief. 

VI.  That  God  has  declared  in  prophecy,  that  it  is  his  will  that 
war  should  eventually  be  eradicated  from  the  earth  ;  and 
this  eradication  will  be  effected  by  Christianity,  by  the  influ- 
ence of  its  present  principles. 

VII.  That  those  who  have  refused  to  engage  in  war,  in  conse- 
quence of  their  belief  of  its  inconsistency  with  Christianity 
have  found  that  Providence  has  protected  them. 


99 

Now  we  think  that  the  establishment  of  a.iy  considerable  mim 
ber  of  these  positions  is  sufficient  for  our  argument  The  estab- 
lishment of  the  whole  forms  a  body  of  evidence,  to  which  I  am 
not  able  to  believe  that  an  inquirer,  to  whom  the  subject  was 
new,  would  be  able  to  withhold  his  assent.  But  since  such  an 
inquirer  cannot  be  found,  I  would  invite  the  reader  to  lay  pre- 
possession aside,  to  suppose  himself  to  have  now  first  heard  of 
battles  and  slaughter,  and  dispassionately  to  examine  whether  the 
evidence  in  favour  of  peace  be  not  very  great,  and  whether  the 
objections  to  it  bear  any  proportion  to  the  evidence  itself.  But 
whatever  may  be  the  determination  upon  this  question,  surely  it 
is  reasonable  to  try  the  experiment  whether  security  cannot  be 
maintained  without  slaughter.  Whatever  be  the  reasons  for  war, 
it  is  certain  that  it  produces  enormous  mischief.  Even  waiving 
the  obligations  of  Christianity,  we  have  to  choose  between  evils 
that  are  certain  and  evils  that  are  doubtful ;  between  the  actual 
endurance  of  a  great  calamity,  and  the  possibility  of  a  less.  It 
certainly  cannot  be  proved  that  peace  would  not  be  the  best 
policy ;  and  since  we  know  that  the  present  system  is  bad,  it  were 
reasonable  and  wise  to  try  whether  the  other  is  not  better.  In 
reality.  I  can  scarcely  conceive  the  possibility  of  greater  evil  than 
that  which  mankind  now  endure ;  an  evil,  moral  and  physical,  of 
far  wider  extent,  and  far  greater  intensity,  than  our  familiarity 
with  it  allows  us  to  suppose.  If  a  system  of  peace  be  not  pro- 
ductive of  less  evil  than  the  system  of  war,  its  consequences  must 
indeed  be  enormously  bad ;  and  that  it  would  produce  such  conse- 
quences, we  have  no  warrant  for  believing  either  from  reason  or 
from  practice — either  from  the  principles  of  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  God,  or  from  the  experience  of  mankind.  Whenever  a 
people  shall  pursue,  steadily  and  uniformly,  the  pacific  morality 
of  the  gospel,  and  shall  do  this  from  the  pure  motive  of  obedience, 
there  is  no  reason  to  fear  for  the  consequences :  there  is  no  reason 
to  fear  that  they  would  experience  any  evils  such  as  we  now 
endure,  or  that  they  would  not  find  that  Christianity  understands 
their  interests  better  than  themselves ;  and  that  the  surest  and 
the  only  rule  of  wisdom,  of  safety,  and  of  expediency,  is  to  main 
lain  her  spirit  in  every  circumstance  of  life. 

'*  There  is  reason  to  expect,"  says  Dr.  Johnson,  "  that  as  the 
world  is  more  enlightened,  policy  and  morality  will  at  last  be 


100 

reconciled."*  When  this  enlightened  period  shall  arrive,  we  shall 
be  approaching,  and  we  shall  not  till  then  approach,  that  era  oi 
purity  and  of  peace,  when  "  violence  shall  be  no  more  heard  in 
our  land,  wasting  nor  destruction  within  our  borders" — that  era 
in  which  God  has  promised  that  "  they  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy 
in  all  his  holy  mountain."  That  a  period  like  this  will  come,  1 
am  not  able  to  doubt :  I  believe  it  because  it  is  not  credible  that 
he  will  always  endure  the  butchery  of  man  by  man ;  because  he 
has  declared  that  he  will  not  endure  it;  and  because  I  think 
there  is  a  perceptible  approach  of  that  period  in  which  he  will 
say-—"  It  is  enough."f  In  this  belief  I  rejoice :  I  rejoice  that  the 
number  is  increasing  of  those  who  are  asking, — "  Shall  the  sword 
devour  for  ever  ?"  and  of  those  who,  whatever  be  the  opinions  or 
the  practice  of  others,  are  openly  saying,  '*  I  am  for  peace."  J 
Whether  I  have  succeeded  in  establishing  the  position  THAT 

WAR,    OP    EVERY    KIND,    IS     INCOMPATIBLE    WITH    CHRISTIANITY,    it    is    not 

my  business  to  determine ;  but  of  this,  at  least,  I  can  assure  the 
reader,  that  I  would  not  have  intruded  this  inquiry  upon  the 
public,  if  I  had  not  believed,  with  undoubting  confidence,  that 
the  position  is  accordant  with  everlasting  truth  ; — with  that  truth 
which  should  regulate  our  conduct  here,  and  which  will  not  be 
superseded  in  the  world  that  is  to  come. 

*  Falkland's  Islands.  f  2  Sam.  xxiv.  16.  {  Psalm  cnt  7. 


III. 


OBSERVATIONS  ON   THE  EFFECTS  OF  WA7 


War's  least  horror  is  tk'  ensanguined  field. — Barbauld. 


THERE  are  few  maxims  of  more  unfailing  truth  than  that  "  A 
tree  is  known  by  its  fruits ;"  and  I  will  acknowledge  that  if  the 
lawfulness  of  war  were  to  be  determined  by  a  reference  to  its 
consequences,  I  should  willingly  consign  it  to  this  test,  in  the 
belief  that,  if  popular  impressions  were  suspended,  a  good,  or  a 
benevolent,  or  a  reasoning  man  would  find  little  cause  to  decide 
in  its  favour. 

In  attempting  to  illustrate  some  of  the  effects  of  war,  it  is  my 
purpose  to  inquire  not  so  much  into  its  civil  or  political,  as  into 
its  moral  consequences ;  and  of  the  latter,  to  notice  those,  chiefly, 
\vhich  commonly  obtain  little  of  our  inquiry  or  attention.  To 
speak  strictly  indeed,  civil  and  political  considerations  are  neces- 
sarily involved  in  the  moral  tendency :  for  the  happiness  of  society 
is  always  diminished  by  the  diminution  of  morality ;  and  enligh- 
tened policy  knows  that  the  greatest  support  of  a  state  is  the 
virtue  of  the  people. 

The  reader  needs  not  be  reminded  of — what  nothing  but  the 
frequency  of  the  calamity  can  make  him  forget — the  intense  suf- 
ferings and  irreparable  deprivations  which  a  battle  inevitably 
entails  upon  private  life.  These  are  calamities  of  which  the 
world  thinks  little,  and  which,  if  it  thought  of  them,  it  could  not 
remove.  A  father  or  a  husband  can  seldom  be  replaced :  a  void 
is  created  in  the  domestic  felicity,  which  there  is  little  hope  that 
the  future  will  fill.  By  the  slaughter  of  a  war,  there  are  thou 


102 

sands  who  weep  in  unpitied  and  unnoticed  secrecy,  whom  the 
world  does  not  see  ;  and  thousands  who  retire,  in  silence,  to  hope 
less  poverty,  for  whom  it  does  not  care.  To  these,  the  conquest 
of  a  kingdom  is  of  little  importance.  The  loss  of  a  protector  or 
a  friend  is  ill  repaid  by  empty  glory.  An  addition  of  territory 
may  add  titles  to  a  king,  but  the  brilliancy  of  a  crown  throws 
little  light  upon  domestic  gloom.  It  is  not  my  intention  to  insist 
upon  these  calamities,  intense,  and  irreparable,  and  unnumbered 
as  they  are  ;  but  those  who  begin  a  war  without  taking  them  into 
their  estimates  of  its  consequences,  must  be  regarded  as,  at  most, 
half-seeing  politicians.  The  legitimate  object  of  political  measures 
is  the  good  of  the  people — and  a  great  sum  of  good  a  war  must 
produce,  if  it  outbalances  even  this  portion  of  its  mischiefs. 

In  the  more  obvious  effects  of  war,  there  is.  however,  a  sufficient 
sum  of  evil  and  wretchedness.  The  most  dreadful  of  these  is  the 
destruction  of  human  life.  The  frequency  with  which  this 
destruction  is  represented  to  our  minds  has  almost  extinguished 
our  perception  of  its  awfulness  and  horror.  In  the  interval 
between  anno  1141  and  1815,  our  country  has  been  at  war  with 
France  alone,  two  hundred  and  sixty-six  years.  If  to  this  we  add 
our  wars  with  other  countries,  probably  we  shall  find  that  one- 
half  of  the  last  six  or  seven  centuries  has  been  spent  by  this 
country  in  war !  A  dreadful  picture  of  human  violence  !  There 
is  no  means  of  knowing  how  many  victims  have  been  sacrificed 
during  this  lapse  of  ages.  Those  who  have  fallen  in  battle,  and 
those  who  have  perished  "  in  tents  and  ships,  amidst  damps  and 
putrefaction,"  probably  amount  to  a  number  greater  than  the 
number  of  men  now  existing  in  France  and  England  together. 
And  where  is  our  equivalent  good  ? — "  The  wars  of  Europe,  for 
these  two  hundred  years  last  past,  by  the  confession  of  all  parties, 
have  really  ended  in  the  advantage  of  none,  but  to  the  manifest 
detriment  of  all."  This  is  the  testimony  of  the  celebrated  Dr. 
Josiah  Tucker,  Dean  of  Gloucester :  and  Erasmus  has  said,  '*  I 
know  not  whether  ANY  war  ever  succeeded  so  fortunately  in  all 
its  events,  but  that  the  conqueror,  if  he  had  a  he^irt  to  feel  or  an 
understanding  to  judge  as  he  ought  to  do,  repented  that  he  had 
ever  engaged  in  it  at  all." 

Since  the  last  war,  we  have  heard  much  of  the  distresses  of  the 
country ;  and  whatever  be  the  opinion  whether  they  have  been 


103 

brought  upon  us  by  the  peace,  none  will  question  whether  the} 
have  been  brought  upon  us  by  war.  The  peace  may  be  the 
occasion  of  them,  but  war  has  been  the  cause.  I  have  no  wish 
to  declaim  upon  the  amount  of  our  national  debt — that  it  is  a 
great  evil,  and  that  it  has  been  brought  upon  us  by  successive 
contests,  no  one  disputes.  Such  considerations  ought,  undoubt- 
edly, to  influence  the  conduct  of  public  men  in  their  disagreements 
with  other  states,  even  if  higher  considerations  do  not  influence 
it.  They  ought  to  form  part  of  the  calculations  of  the  evil  ot 
hostility.  I  believe  that  a  greater  mass  of  human  suffering  and 
loss  of  human  enjoyment  are  occasioned  by  the  pecuniary  dis- 
tresses of  a  war,  than  any  ordinary  advantages  of  a  war  com- 
pensate. But  this  consideration  seems  too  remote  to  obtain  our 
notice.  Anger  at  offence,  or  hope  of  triumph,  overpowers  the 
sober  calculations  of  reason,  and  outbalances  the  weight  of  after 
and  long  continued  calamities.  If  the  happiness  of  the  people 
were,  what  it  ought  to  be,  the  primary  and  the  ultimate  object  of 
national  measures,  I  think  that  the  policy  which  pursued  this 
object  would  often  find  that  even  the  pecuniary  distresses  result- 
ing from  a  war  make  a  greater  deduction  from  the  quantum  of 
felicity,  than  those  evils  which  the  war  may  have  been  designed 
to  avoid.  At  least  the  distress  is  certain;  the  advantage  doubt- 
ful. It  is  known  that  during  the  past  eight  years  of  the  present 
peace,  a  considerable  portion  of  the  community  have  been  in 
suffering  in  consequence  of  war.  Eight  years  of  suffering  to  a 
million  of  human  creatures,  is  a  serious  thing  !  "  It  is  no  answer 
to  say,  that  this  universal  suffering,  and  even  the  desolation  that 
attends  it,  are  the  inevitable  consequences  and  events  of  war, 
how  warrantably  soever  entered  into,  but  rather  an  argument 
that  no  war  can  be  warrantably  entered  into,  that  may  produce 
such  intolerable  mischiefs."* 

There  is  much  of  truth,  as  there  is  of  eloquence,  in  these  obser- 
vations of  one  of  the  most  acute  intellects  that  our  country  has 
produced : — "  It  is  wonderful  with  what  coolness  and  indifference 
the  greater  part  of  mankind  see  war  commenced.  Those  that 

*  Lord  Clarendon— who,  however,  excepts  those  wars  which  are  likely  "  to 
introduce  as  much  benefit  to  the  world,  as  damage  and  inconvenience  to  a  part  of 
it."  The  morality  of  this  celebrated  man,  also,  seems  thus  to  have  been  wrecked 
upon  the  rock  of  expediency. 


104 

hear  of  it  at  a  distance,  or  read  of  it  in  books,  but  have  nevei 
presented  its  evils  to  their  minds,  consider  it  as  little  more  than 
a  splendid  game,  a  proclamation,  an  army,  a  battle  and  a  tri- 
umph. Some,  indeed,  must  perish  in  the  most  successful  field ; 
but  they  die  upon  the  bed  of  honor,  resign  their  lives  amidst  the  joys 
of  conquest,  and  filled  with  England's  glory,  smile  in  death.  The 
life  of  a  modern  soldier  is  ill  represented  by  heroic  fiction.  War 
has  means  of  destruction  more  formidable  than  the  cannon  and 
the  sword.  Of  the  thousands  and  ten  thousands  that  perished  in 
our  late  contests  with  France  and  Spain,  a  very  small  part  ever 
felt  the  stroke  of  an  enemy.  The  rest  languished  in  tents  and 
ships,  amidst  damps  and  putrefaction,  gasping  and  groaning,  un- 
pitied  amongst  men  made  obdurate  by  long  continuance  of  hope- 
less misery  ;  and  were  at  last  whelmed  in  pits,  or  heaved  into  the 
ocean,  without  notice  and  without  remembrance.  By  incommo- 
dious encampments  and  unwholesome  stations,  where  courage  is 
useless  and  enterprise  impracticable,  fleets  are  silently  dispeopled, 
and  armies  sluggishly  melted  away. 

"  Thus  is  a  people  gradually  exhausted,  for  the  most  part  with 
little  effect.  The  wars  of  civilized  nations  make  very  slow  changes 
in  the  system  of  empire.  The  public  perceives  scarcely  any  alte- 
ration but  an  increase  of  debt ;  and  the  few  individuals  who  are 
benefited  are  not  supposed  to  have  the  clearest  right  to  their  ad- 
vantages. If  he  that  shared  the  danger  enjoyed  the  profit,  and 
after  bleeding  in  the  battle,  grew  rich  by  the  victory,  he  might 
show  his  gains  without  envy.  But  at  the  conclusion  of  a  ten 
years'  war,  how  are  we  recompensed  for  the  death  of  multitudes, 
and  the  expense  of  millions,  but  by  contemplating  the  sudden 
glories  of  paymasters  and  agents,  and  contractors  and  commis- 
saries, whose  equipages  shine  like  meteors,  and  whose  palaces 
rise  like  exhalations  ? 

"  These  are  the  men,  who  without  virtue,  labor,  or  hazard,  are 
growing  rich  as  their  country  is  impoverished  ;  they  rejoice  when 
obstinacy  or  ambition  adds  another  year  to  slaughter  and  devas- 
tation, and  laugh  from  their  desks  at  bravery  and  science,  while 
they  are  adding  figure  to  figure,  and  cipher  to  cipher,  hoping  for 
a  new  contract  from  a  new  armament,  and  computing  the  profits 
of  a  siege  or  a  tempest."* 

*  Johnson—Falkland's  fclands. 


105 

Our  business,  however,  is  principally  with  the  moral  effects  of 
war. 

"  The  tenderness  of  nature,  and  the  integrity  of  manners,  which 
are  driven  away  or  powerfully  discountenanced  by  the  corruption 
of  war,  are  not  quickly  recovered — and  the  weeds  which  grow  up 
in  the  shortest  war,  can  hardly  be  pulled  up  and  extirpated  with- 
out a  long  and  unsuspected  peace." — "  War  introduces  and  propa- 
gates opinions  and  practice  as  much  against  heaven  as  against 
earth ; — it  lays  our  natures  and  manners  as  waste  as  our  gardens 
and  our  habitations  ;  and  we  can  as  easily  preserve  the  bea  uty 
of  the  one  as  the  integrity  of  the  other,  under  the  cursed  juris- 
diction of  drums  and  trumpets."* 

"  War  does  more  harm  to  the  morals  of  men  than  even  to  tn-dr 
property  and  persons. vf  "  It  is  a  temporary  repeal  of  all  the 
principles  of  virtue."  J  "  There  is  not  a  virtue  of  gospel  goodness 
but  has  its  death-blow  from  war."§ 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  greater  sum  of  moral  evil  resulting 
from  war,  is  suffered  by  those  who  are  immediately  engaged  ir  it, 
or  by  the  public.  The  mischief  is  most  extensive  upon  the  com- 
munity, but  upon  the  profession  it  is  most  intense. 

Rara  fides  pietasque  viris  qui  castra  sequuntur. 

LUC  AN. 

No  one  pretends  to  applaud  the  morals  of  an  army,  and  for  its  re- 
ligion, few  think  of  it  at  all.  A  soldier  is  depraved  even  to  a 
proverb.  The  fact  is  too  notorious  to  be  insisted  upon,  that  thou- 
sands who  had  filled  their  stations  in  life  with  propriety,  and  been 
virtuous  from  principle,  have  lost,  by  a  military  life  both  the  prac- 
tice and  the  regard  of  morality ;  and  when  they  have  become 
habituated  to  the  vices  of  war,  have  laughed  at  their 'honest  and 
plodding  brethren  who  are  still  spiritless  enough  for  virtue,  or 
stupid  enough  for  piety.  The  vices  which  once  had  shocked  them, 
become  the  subject,  not  of  acquiescence,  but  of  exultation.  "  Al- 
most all  the  professions,"  says  Dr.  Knox,  "  have  some  character- 
istic manners,  which  the  professors  seem  to  adopt  with  little 

*  Lord  Clarendon's  Essays.  f  Erasmus, 

t  Hall.  5  William  Law,  A.  M, 

14 


106 


examination,  as  necessary  and  as  honorable  distinctions.  It  hap- 
pens, unfortunately,  that  profligacy,  libertinism,  and  infidelity  are 
thought,  by  weaker  minds,  almost  as  necessary  a  part  of  a  sol- 
dier's uniform,  as  his  shoulderknot.  To  hesitate  at  an  oath,  to 
decline  intoxication,  to  profess  a  regard  for  religion,  would  be  al- 
most as  ignominious  as  to  refuse  a  challenge."* 

It  is,  however,  not  necessary  to  insist  upon  the  immoral  influ- 
ence of  war  upon  the  military  character,  since  no  one  probably 
wiK  dispute  it.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  discover  how  the  immorality 
is  occasioned.  It  is  obvious  that  those  who  are  continually  en- 
gaged in  a  practice  "  in  which  almost  all  the  vices  are  incorpo- 
rated," and  who  promote  this  practice  with  individual  eagerness, 
cannot,  without  the  intervention  of  a  miracle,  be  otherwise  than 
."ollectively  depraved. 

\.f  the  soldier  engages  in  the  destruction  of  his  species,  he  should 
at  least  engage  in  it  with  reluctance,  and  abandon  it  with  joy. 
The  slaughter  of  his  fellow  men  should  be  dreadful  in  execution 
an J.  in  thought.  But  what  is  his  aversion  or  reluctance  ?  He 
fecis  none — it  is  not  even  a  subject  of  seriousness  to  him.  He 
butchers  his  fellow  candidates  for  heaven,  as  a  woodman  fells  a 
coppice ;  with  as  little  reluctance  and  as  little  regret. 

Those  who  will  compute  the  tendency  of  this  familiarity  with 
human  destruction,  cannot  doubt  whether  it  will  be  pernicious  to 
the  moral  character.  What  is  the  hope,  that  he  who  is  familiar 
with  murder,  who  has  himself  often  perpetrated  it,  and  who  ex- 
ults in  the  perpetration,  will  retain  undepraved  the  principles  of 
virtue  ?  His  moral  feelings  are  blunted  ;  his  moral  vision  is  ob- 
scured. We  say  his  moral  vision  is  obscured;  for  we  do  not 
think  it  possible  that  he  should  retain  even  the  perception  of  Chris- 
tian purity.  The  soldier,  again,  who  plunders  the  citizen  of  an- 
other nation  without  remorse  or  reflection,  and  bears  away  the 
spoils  with  triumph,  will  inevitably  lose  something  of  his  princi- 
ples of  probity.  These  principles  are  shaken  ;  an  inroad  is  made 
upon  their  integrity,  and  it  is  an  inroad  that  makes  after  inroads 
the  more  easy.  Mankind  do  not  generally  resist  the  influence  of 
habit.  If  we  rob  and  shoot  those  who  are  "  enemies"  to-day,  we 


*  Essays. — No.  19      Knox  justly  makes  much  exception  to  the  applicability  of 
these  censures 


107 

are  in  some  degree  prepared  to  shoot  and  rob  those  wno  avp  not 
enemies  to-morrow.  The  strength  of  the  restraining  moral  prin- 
ciple is  impaired.  Law  may,  indeed,  still  restrain  us  from  vio- 
lence ;  but  the  power  and  efficiency  of  principle  is  diminished. 
And  this  alienation  of  the  mind  from  the  practice,  the  love,  and 
the  perception  of  Christian  purity  therefore,  of  necessity  extends 
its  influence  to  the  other  circumstances  of  life  ;  and  it  is  hence 
in  part,  that  the  general  profligacy  of  armies  arises.  That  which 
we  have  not  practised  in  war  we  are  little  likely  to  practise  ir 
peace  ;  and  there  is  no  hope  we  shall  possess  the  goodness  which 
we  neither  love  nor  perceive. 

Another  means  by  which  war  becomes  pernicious  to  the  moral 
character  of  the  soldier.,  is  the  incapacity  which  the  profession 
occasions  for  the  sober  pursuits  of  life.  "  The  profession  of  a  sol- 
dier," says  Dr.  Paley,  "  almost  always  unfits  men  for  the  business 
of  regular  occupations."  On  the  question,  whether  it  be  better 
that  of  three  inhabitants  of  a  village,  one  should  be  a  soldier  and 
two  husbandmen,  or  that  all  should  occasionally  become  both, 
he  says  that  from  the  latter  arrangement  the  country  receives 
three  raw  militia  men  and  three  idle  and  profligate  peasants.  War 
cannot  be  continual.  Soldiers  must  sometimes  become  citizens ; 
and  citizens  who  are  unfit  for  stated  business  will  be  idle  ;  and 
they  who  are  idle  will  scarcely  be  virtuous.  A  political  project, 
therefore,  such  as  a  war,  which  will  eventually  pour  fifty  or  a 
hundred  thousand  of  such  men  upon  the  community,  must  of  ne- 
cessity be  an  enormous  evil  to  a  state.  It  were  an  infelicitous 
defence  to  say,  that  soldiers  do  not  become  idle  until  the  war  is 
closed,  or  they  leave  the  army. — To  keep  men  out  of  idleness  by 
employing  them  in  cutting  other  men's  limbs  and  bodies,  is  at 
least  an  extraordinary  economy  ;  and  the  profligacy  still  remains  ; 
for  unhappily  if  war  keeps  soldiers  busy,  it  does  not  keep  them 
good. 

By  a  peculiar  and  unhappy  coincidence,  the  moral  evil  attend- 
ant upon  the  profession  is  perpetuated  by  the  after  system  of  half- 
pay.  We  have  no  concern  with  this  system  on  political  or  pecu- 
niary considerations  ;  but  it  will  be  obvious  that  those  who  re- 
turn from  war,  with  the  principles  and  habits  of  war,  are  little 
likely  to  improve  either  by  a  life  without  necessary  occupation  or 


108 

express  object.  By  this  system,  there  are  thousands  of  men,  in 
the  prime  or  in  the  bloom  of  life,  who  live  without  such  object  or 
occupation.  This  would  be  an  evil  if  it  happened  to  any  set  of 
rnen,  but  upon  men  who  have  been  soldiers  the  evil  is  peculiarly 
intense.  He  whose  sense  of  moral  obligation  has  been  impaired 
by  the  circumstances  of  his  former  life,  and  whose  former  life 
has  induced  habits  of  disinclination  to  regular  pursuits,  is  the 
man  who,  above  all  others,  it  is  unfortunate  for  the  interests  of 
purity  should  be  supported  on  "  half-pay."  If  war  have  occa- 
sioned "unfitness  for  regular  occupations,"  he  will  not  pursue 
them  ;  if  it  have  familiarized  him  with  profligacy,  he  will  be  lit- 
tle restrained  by  virtue.  And  the  consequences  of  consigning 
men  under  such  circumstances  to  society,  at  a  period  of  life  when 
the  mind  is  busy  and  restless  and  the  passions  are  strong,  must,  of 
inevitable  necessity  be  bad. — The  officer  who  leaves  the  army 
with  the  income  only  which  the  country  allows  him,  often  finds 
sufficient  difficulty  in  maintaining  the  character  of  a  gentleman. 
A  gentleman  however  he  will  be ;  and  he  who  resolves  to  appear 
rich  whilst  he  is  poor,  who  will  not  increase  his  fortune  by  indus- 
try, and  who  has  learnt  to  have  few  restraints  from  principle, 
sometimes  easily  persuades  himself  to  pursue  schemes  of  but  very 
exceptionable  probity.  Indeed,  by  his  peculiar  law,  the  "  law  of 
honor,"  honesty  is  not  required. 

I  do  not  know  whether  it  be  politic  that  he  who  has  held  a 
commission  should  not  be  expected  to  use  a  ledger  or  a  yard ;  but 
since,  by  thus  becoming  a  "  military  gentleman,"  the  number  is 
increased  of  those  who  regulate  their  conduct  by  the  law  of  honour: 
the  rule  is  necessarily  pernicious  in  its  effects.  When  it  is  considered 
that  this  law  allows  of  "  profaneness.  neglect  of  public  worship  and 
private  devotion,  cruelty  to  servants,  rigorous  treatment  of  ten- 
ants or  other  dependants,  want  of  charity  to  the  poor,  injuries 
to  tradesmen  by  insolvency  or  delay  of  payment,  with  number- 
less examples  of  the  same  kind  ;"  that  it  is,  "  in  most  instances, 
favorable  to  the  licentious  indulgence  of  the  natural  passions ;" 
that  it  allows  of  "  adultery,  drunkenness,  prodigality,  duelling,  and 
of  revenge  in  the  extreme"* — when  all  this  is  considered,  it  is 
manifestly  inevitable,  that  those  who  regulate  their  conduct  by 

*  Dr.  Paley. 


109 

the  maxims  of  such  a  law.  must  become,  as  a  body,  i educed  to  a 
low  station  in  the  scale  of  morality.* 

We  insist  upon  these  things  because  they  are  the  consequences  of 
war.  We  have  no  concern  with  "  half-pay,"  or  with  the  "  law 
of  honor,"  but  with  war,  which  extends  the  evil  of  the  one,  and 
creates  the  evil  of  the  other.  Soldiers  may  be  depraved— and 
part  of  their  depravity  is,  undoubtedly,  their  crime,  but  part  also 
is  their  misfortune.  T/ie  whole  evil  is  imputable  to  war;  and 
we  say  that  this  evil  forms  a  powerful  evidence  against  it, 
whether  we  direct  that  evidence  to  the  abstract  question  of  its 
lawfulness  or  to  the  practical  question  of  its  expediency.  That 
can  scarcely  be  lawful  which  necessarily  occasions  such  enormous 
depravity.  That  can  scarcely  be  expedient  which  is  so  pernicious 
to  virtue,  and  therefore  to  the  state. 

The  economy  of  war  requires  of  every  soldier  an  implicit  sub- 
mission to  his  superior  ;  and  this  submission  is  required  of  every 
gradation  of  rank  to  that  above  it.  This  system  may  be  neces- 
sary to  hostile  operations,  but  I  think  it  is  unquestionably  adverse 
to  intellectual  and  moral  excellence. 

The  very  nature  of  unconditional  obedience  implies  the  relin- 
quishment  of  the  use  of  the  reasoning  powers.  Little  more  is  re- 
quired of  the  soldier  than  that  he  be  obedient  and  brave.  His 
obedience  is  that  of  an  animal  which  is  moved  by  a  goad  or  a 
bit,  without  judgment  or  volition  of  his  own  :  and  his  bravery  is 
that  of  a  mastiff,  which  fights  whatever  mastiff  others,  put  before 
him. — It  is  obvious  that  in  such  agency,  the  intellect  and  the  un- 
derstanding have  little  part.  Now  I  think  that  this  is  important. 
He  who,  with  whatever  motive,  resigns  the  direction  of  his  con- 
duct implicitly  to  another,  surely  cannot  retain  that  erectness 
and  independence  of  mind,  that  manly  consciousness  of  mental 

*  There  is  something  very  unmanly  and  cowardly  in  some  of  the  maxims  of  this 
law  of  honor.  How  unlike  the  fortitude,  the  manliness  of  real  courage,  are  the 
motives  of  him  who  fights  a  duel !  He  accepts  a  challenge,  commonly  because  he 
is  afraid  to  refuse  it.  The  question  with  him  is,  whether  he  fears  more,  a  pistol 
or  the  world's  dread  frown;  and  his  conduct  is  determined  by  the  preponderating 
influence  of  one  of  these  objects  of  fear.  If  I  am  told  that  he  probably  feels  no  fear 
of  death  ;  I  answer,  that  if  he  fears  not  the  death  of  a  duellist,  his  principles  have 
Rimk  to  that  abyss  of  depravity,  whence  nothing  but  the  interposition  of  Omnipo- 
lence  is  likely  to  reclaim  them. 


110 

freedom,  which  is  one  of  the  highest  privileges  of  our  nature. 
The  rational  being  becomes  reduced  in  the  intellectual  scale  • 
an  encroachment  is  made  upon  the  integrity  of  its  independence, 
God  has  given  us,  individually,  capacities  for  the  regulation  of 
our  individual  conduct.  To  resign  its  direction,  therefore,  to  the 
despotism  of  another,  appears  to  be  an  unmanly  and  unjustifiable 
relinquishment  of  the  privileges  which  he  has  granted  to  us.  Re- 
ferring simply  to  the  conclusions  of  reason,  I  think  those  conclu- 
sions would  be,  that  military  obedience  must  be  pernicious  to  the 
mind.  And  if  we  proceed  from  reasoning  to  facts,  I  believe 
that  our  conclusions  will  be  confirmed.  Is  the  military  character 
distinguished  by  intellectual  eminence  ?  Is  it  not  distinguished 
by  intellectual  inferiority  ?  I  speak  of  course  of  the  exercise  of 
intellect,  and  I  believe  that  if  we  look  around  us,  we  shall  find 
that  no  class  of  men,  in  a  parallel  rank  in  society,  exercise  it 
less,  or  less  honorably  to  human  nature,  than  the  military  pro- 
fession.* I  do  not,  however,  attribute  the  want  of  intellectual 
excellence  solely  to  the  implicit  submission  of  a  military  life. 
Nor  do  I  say  that  this  want  is  so  much  the  fault  of  the  soldier, 
as  of  the  circumstances  to  which  he  is  subjected.  We  attribute 
this  evil  also  to  its  rightful  parent.  The  resignation  of  our  ac- 
tions to  the  direction  of  a  foreign  will,  is  made  so  familiar  to  us  by 
war,  and  is  mingled  with  so  many  associations  which  reconcile  it, 
that  I  am  afraid  lest  the  reader  should  not  contemplate  it  with 
sufficient  abstraction.  Let  him  remember  that  in  nothing  but  in 
war  do  we  submit  to  it. 

It  becomes  a  subject  yet  more  serious,  if  military  obedience 
requires  the  relinquishment  of  our  moral  agency, — if  it  requires 
us  to  do,  not  only  what  may  be  opposed  to  our  will,  but  w  hat  is 
opposed  to  our  consciences.  And  it  does  require  this ;  a  soldier 
must  obey,  how  criminal  soever  the  command,  and  how  criminal 

*  This  inferiority  will  probably  be  found  less  conspicuous  in  the  private  than  in 
his  superiors.  Employment  in  different  situations,  or  in  foreign  countries,  and  the 
consequent  acquisition  of  information,  often  make  the  private  soldier  superior  in  in- 
telligence to  laborers  and  mechanics  ;  a  cause  of  superiority  which,  of  course,  does 
not  similarly  operate  amongst  men  of  education. 

We  would  here  beg  the  reader  to  bear  in  his  recollection,  the  limitation? 
which  are  stated  in  the  preface,  respecting  the  application  of  any  apparent  severitv 
in  our  remarks. 


Ill 

soevei  he  knows  it  to  be.  It  is  certain  that  of  those  wno  compose 
armiei  many  commit  actions  which  they  believe  to  be  wicked,  and 
which  they  would  not  commit  but  for  the  obligations  of  a  mili- 
tary life.  Although  a  soldier  determinately  believes  that  the  war 
is  unjust,  although  he  is  convinced  that  his  particular  part  of 
the  service  is  atrociously  criminal,  ^till  he  must  proceed — he 
must  prosecute  the  purposes  of  injustice  or  robbery  ;  he  must 
participate  in  the  guilt,  and  be  himself  a  robber.  When  we 
have  sacrificed  thus  much  of  principle,  what  do  we  retain  ?  If 
we  abandon  all  use  of  our  perceptions  of  good  and  evil,  to  what 
purpose  has  the  capacity  of  perception  been  given  ?  It  were  as 
well  to  possess  no  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  as  to  prevent  our- 
selves from  the  pursuit  or  rejection  of  them.  To  abandon  some 
of  the  most  exalted  privileges  which  heaven  has  granted  to  man 
kind,  to  refuse  the  acceptance  of  them,  and  to  throw  them  back, 
as  it  were,  upon  the  Donor,  is  surely  little  other  than  profane. 
He  who  hid  a  talent  was  of  old  punished  for  his  wickedness : 
what  then  is  the  offence  of  him  who  refuses  to  receive  it  ?  Such 
a  resignation  of  our  moral  agency  is  not  contended  for  or  tolerated 
in  any  one  other  circumstance  of  human  life.  War  stands  upon 
this  pinnacle  of  depravity  alone.  She  only,  in  the  supremacy  of 
crime,  has  told  us  that  she  has  abolished  even  the  obligation  to 
be  virtuous. 

To  what  a  situation  is  a  rational  and  responsible  being  re- 
duced, who  commits  actions,  good  or  bad,  mischievous  or  oene- 
ficial,  at  the  word  of  another  1  I  can  conceive  no  greater  degra- 
dation. It  is  the  lowest,  the  final  abjectness  of  the  moral  nature. 
It  is  this  if  we  abate  the  glitter  of  war,  and  if  we  add  this  glitter 
it  is  nothing  more.  Surely  the  dignity  of  reason,  and  the  light 
of  revelation  and  our  responsibility  to  God,  should  make  us 
pause  before  we  become  the  voluntary  subjects  of  this  monstrous 
system. 

I  do  not  know,  inleed,  under  what  circumstances  of  responsi- 
bility a  man  supposes  himself  to  be  placed,  who  thus  abandons 
and  violates  his  own  sense  of  rectitude  and  of  his  duties.  Either 
he  is  responsible  for  his  actions,  or  he  is  not,  and  the  question 
is  a  serious  one  to  determine.  Christianity  has  certainly  never 
stated  any  cases  in  which  personal  responsibility  ceases.  If  she 
admits  such  cases,  she  has  at  least  not  told  us  so ;  but  she  has 


112 

told  us,  explicitly  and  repeatedly,  that  she  does  require  Individ 
ual  obedience  and  impose  individual  responsibility.  She  has  made 
no  exceptions  to  the  imperativeness  of  her  obligations,  whether 
we  are  required  to  neglect  them  or  not ;  and  I  can  discover  in 
her  sanctions,  no  reason  to  suppose  that  in  her  final  adjudications 
she  admits  the  plea,  that  another  required  us  to  do  that  which  she 
required  us  to  forbear. — But  it  may  be  feared,  it  may  be  believed, 
that  how  little  soever  religion  will  abate  of  the  responsibility  of 
those  who  obey,  she  will  impose  not  a  little  upon  those  who  com- 
mand. They,  at  least,  are  answerable  for  the  enormities  of  war ; 
unless,  indeed,  any  one  shall  tell  me  that  responsibility  attaches 
nowhere  ;  that  that  which  would  be  wickedness  in  another  man, 
is  innocence  in  a  soldier;  and  that  heaven  has  granted  to  the 
directors  of  war  a  privileged  immunity,  by  virtue  of  which  crime 
incurs  no  guilt,  and  receives  no  punishment. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  obedience  which  war  exacts  to  ar- 
bitrary power,  possesses  more  of  the  character  of  servility  and 
even  of  slavery,  than  we  are  accustomed  to  suppose ;  and  as  I 
think  this  consideration  may  reasonably  affect  our  feeling  of  in- 
dependence, how  little  soever  higher  considerations  may  affect 
our  consciences,  I  would  allow  myself  in  a  few  sentences  upon 
the  subject.  I  will  acknowledge  that  when  I  see  a  company  of 
men  in  a  stated  dress,  and  of  a  stated  color,  ranged,  rank  and  file, 
in  the  attitude  of  obedience,  turning  or  walking  at  the  word  of 
another,  now  changing  the  position  of  a  limb,  and  now  altering 
the  angle  of  a  foot.  I  feel  humiliation  and  shame.  I  feel  humilia- 
tion and  shame  when  I  think  of  the  capacities  and  the  prospects  of 
man,  at  seeing  him  thus  drilled  into  obsequiousness  and  educated 
into  machinery.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  shall  be  charged  with 
indulging  in  idle  sentiment  or  idler  affectation.  If  I  hold  unusual 
language  upon  the  subject,  let  it  be  remembered  that  the  subject 
is  itself  unusual.  I  will  retract  my  affectation  and  sentiment,  if 
the  reader  will  show  me  any  case  in  life  parallel  to  that  to 
which  I  have  applied  it. 

No  one  questions  whether  military  power  be  arbitrary.  That 
which  governs  an  army,  says  Paley,  is  DESPOTISM  :  and  the  subjects 
of  despotic  power  we  call  slaves.  Yet  a  man  may  live  under  an 
arbitrary  prince  with  only  the  liability  to  slavery ;  he  may  live 
and  die,  unmolested  in  his  person  and  unrestrained  in  his  freedom. 


113 

But  the  despotism  of  an  army  is  an  operative  despotism,  and  a 
soldier  is  practically  and  personally  a  slave.  Submission  to 
arbitrary  authority  is  the  business  of  his  life :  the  will  of  the 
despot  is  his  rule  of  action. 

It  is  vain  to  urge  that  if  this  be  slavery,  every  one  who  labours 
for  another  is  a  slave ;  because  there  is  a  difference  between  the 
subjection  of  a  soldier  and  that  of  all  other  labourers,  in  which 
the  essence  of  slavery  consists.  If  I  order  my  servant  to  do  a 
given  action,  he  is  at  liberty,  if  he  think  the  action  improper,  or 
if,  from  any  other  cause,  he  choose  not  to  do  it,  to  refuse  his  obe- 
dience. I  can  discharge  him  from  my  service  indeed,  but  I  cannot 
compel  obedience  or  punish  his  refusal.  The  soldier  is  thus 
punished  or  compelled.  It  matters  not  whether  he  have  entered 
the  service  voluntarily  or  involuntarily :  being  there,  he  is  required 
to  do  what  may  be,  and  what  in  fact,  often  is,  opposed  to  his  will 
and  his  judgment.  If  he  refuse  obedience,  he  is  dreadfully 
punished ;  his  flesh  is  lacerated  and  torn  from  his  body,  and 
finally,  if  he  persists  in  his  refusal,  he  may  be  shot.  Neither  is 
he  permitted  to  leave  the  service.  His  natural  right  to  go 
whither  he  would,  of  which  nothing  but  his  own  crimes  other- 
,wise  deprives  him,  is  denied  to  him  by  war.  If  he  attempt  to 
exercise  this  right,  he  is  pursued  as  a  felon,  he  is  brought  back  in 
irons,  and  is  miserably  tortured  for  "  desertion."  This,  therefore, 
we  think  is  slavery. 

I  have  heard  it  contended  that  an  apprentice  is  a  slave  equally 
with  a  soldier ;  but  it  appears  to  be  forgotten  that  an  apprentice 
is  consigned  to  the  government  of  another  because  he  is  not  able 
to  govern  himself.  But  even  were  apprenticeship  to  continue 
through  life,  it  would  serve  the  objection  but  little.  Neither  cus- 
tom nor  law  allows  a  master  to  require  his  apprentice  to  do  an 
immoral  action.  There  is  nothing  in  his  authority  analogous  to 
that  whirU  compels  a  soldier  to  do  what  he  is  persuaded  is  wicked 
or  unjust.  Neither,  again,  can  a  master  compel  the  obedience  of 
an  apprentice  by  the  punishments  of  a  soldier.  Even  if  his  com- 
mands be  reasonable,  he  cannot,  for  refractoriness,  torture  him 
into  a  swoon,  and  then  revive  him  with  stimulants  only  to  torture 
him  again ;  still  less  can  he  take  him  to  a  field  and  shoot  him. 
And  if  the  command  be  vicious,  he  may  not  punish  his  disobe- 
dience at  all.— Bring  the  despotism  that  governs  an  army  into  the 

15 


114 

government  of  the  state,  and  what  would  Englishmen  say  ?    They 
would  say,  with  one  voice,  that  Englishmen  were  slaves. 

If  this  view  of  military  subjection  fail  to  affect  our  pride,  we 
are  to  attribute  the  failure  to  that  power  of  public  opinion  by 
which  all  things  seem  reconcilable  to  us  ;  by  which  situations 
that  would  otherwise  be  loathsome  and  revolting,  are  made  no 
only  tolerable  but  pleasurable.  Take  away  the  influence  and  the 
gloss  of  public  opinion  from  the  situation  of  a  soldier,  and  what 
should  we  call  it?  We  should  call  it  a  state  of  insufferable 
degradation ;  of  pitiable  slavery.  But  public  opinion,  although 
it  may  influence  notions,  cannot  alter  things.  Whatever  may  be 
our  notion  of  the  soldier's  situation,  he  has  indisputably  resigned 
both  his  moral  and  his  natural  liberty  to  the  government  ot 
despotic  power.  He  has  added  to  ordinary  slavery,  the  slavery 
of  the  conscience ;  and  he  is  therefore,  in  a  twofold  sense,  a 
slave. 

If  I  be  asked  why  I  thus  complain  of  the  nature  of  military 
obedience,  I  answer,  with  Dr.  Watson,  that  all  "  despotism  is  an 
offence  against  natural  justice ;  it  is  a  degradation  of  the  dignity 
of  man,  and  ought  not,  on  any  occasion,  to  be  either  practised  or 
submitted  to :" — I  answer  that  the  obedience  of  a  soldier  does,  in 
point  of  fact,  depress  the  erectness  and  independence  of  his 
mind ; — I  answer,  again,  that  it  is  a  sacrifice  of  his  moral  agency, 
which  impairs  and  vitiates  his  principles,  and  which  our  religion 
emphatically  condemns ;  and,  finally  arid  principally  I  answer, 
that  such  obedience  is  not  defended  or  permitted  for  any  other 
purpose  than  the  prosecution  of  war,  and  that  it  is  therefore  a 
powerful  evidence  against  the  solitary  system  that  requires  it.  I 
do  not  question  the  necessity  of  despotism  to  war :  it  is  because  I 
know  that  it  is  necessary  that  I  thus  refer  to  it ;  for  I  say  tha 
whatever  makes  such  despotism  and  consequent  degradation  and 
vice  necessary,  must  itself  be  bad,  and  must  be  utterly  incom- 
patible with  the  principles  of  Christianity.* 

*  I  would  scarcely  refer  to  the  monstrous  practice  of  impressing  seamen, 
because  there  are  many  who  deplore  and  many  who  condemn  it.  Whether  this 
also  be  necessary  to  war,  I  know  not : — probably  it  is  necessary  ;  and  if  it  be,  I 
would  ask  no  other  evidence  against  the  system  that  requires  it.  Such  an  invasion  of 
the  natural  rights  of  man,  such  a  monstrous  assumption  of  arbitrary  power,  such 
a  violation  of  every  principle  of  justice,  cannot  possibly  be  necessary  to  any  system 
of  which  Christianity  approves. 


115 

Yet  I  do  not  know  whether,  in  its  effects  on  the  military  charac- 
ter, the  greatest  moral  evil  of  war  is  to  be  sought.  Upon  the 
community  its  effects  are  indeed  less  apparent,  because  they  who 
are  the  secondary  subjects  of  the  immoral  influence  are  less 
intensely  affected  by  it  than  the  immediate  agents  of  its  diffusion. 
But  whatever  is  deficient  in  the  degree  of  evil,  is  probably  more 
than  compensated  by  its  extent.  The  influence  is  like  that  of  a 
continual  and  noxious  vapour ;  we  neither  regard  nor  perceive  it, 
but  it  secretly  undermines  the  moral  health. 

Every  one  knows  that  vice  is  contagious.  The  depravity  of  one 
man  has  always  a  tendency  to  deprave  his  neighbours ;  and  it 
therefore  requires  no  unusual  acuteness  to  discover,  that  the  pro- 
digious mass  of  immorality  and  crime,  which  are  accumulated 
by  a  war,  must  have  a  powerful  effect  in  "  demoralizing"  the 
public.  But  there  is  one  circumstance  connected  with  the  inju- 
rious influence  of  war,  which  makes  it  peculiarly  operative  arid 
malignant.  It  is,  that  we  do  not  hate  or  fear  the  influence,  and 
do  not  fortify  ourselves  against  it.  Other  vicious  influences  insinu- 
ate themselves  into  our  minds  by  stealth :  but  this  we  receive 
with  open  embrace.  If  a  felon  exhibits  an  example  of  depravity 
and  outrage,  we  are  little  likely  to  be  corrupted  by  it ;  because 
we  do  not  love  his  conduct  or  approve  it.  But  from  whatever 
cause  it  happens,  the  whole  system  of  war  is  the  subject  of  our 
complacency  or  pleasure ;  and  it  is  therefore  that  its  mischief  is 
so  immense.  If  the  soldier  who  is  familiarized  with  slaughter 
and  rejoices  in  it,  loses  some  of  his  Christian  dispositions,  the 
citizen  who,  without  committing  the  slaughter,  unites  in  the 
exultation,  loses  also  some  of  his.  If  he  who  ravages  a  city  and 
plunders  its  inhabitants,  impairs  his  principles  of  probity,  he  who 
approves  and  applauds  the  outrage,  loses  also  something  of  his 
integrity  or  benevolence.  We  acknowledge  these  truths  when 
applied  to  other  cases.  It  is  agreed  that  a  frequency  of  capita] 
punishments  has  a  tendency  to  make  the  people  callous,  to 
harden  them  against  human  suffering,  and  to  deprave  their  moral 
principles.  And  the  same  effect  will  necessarily  be  produced  by 
war,  of  which  the  destruction  of  life  is  incomparably  greater 
and  of  which  our  abhorence  is  incomparably  less. — The  simple 
truth  is,  that  we  are  gratified  and  delighted  with  things  which 
are  incompatible  with  Christianity,  and  that  our  minds  therefore 


116 

become  alienated  from  its  love.  Our  affections  cannot  be  fully 
directed  to  "  two  masters."  If  we  love  and  delight  in  war.  we 
are  little  likely  to  love  and  delight  in  the  dispositions  of  Christi- 
anity.— And  the  evil  is  in  its  own  nature  of  almost  universal 
operation.  During  a  war,  a  whole  people  become  familiarized 
with  the  utmost  excesses  of  enormity — with  the  utmost  intensity 
of  human  wickedness — and  they  rejoice  and  exult  in  them ;  so 
that  there  is  probably  not  an  individual  in  a  hundred  who  does 
not  lose  something  of  his  Christian  principles  by  a  ten  years'  war. 

The  effect  of  the  system  in  preventing  the  perception,  the  love, 
and  the  operation  of  Christian  principles,  in  the  minds  of  men  who 
know  the  nature  and  obligations  of  them,  needs  little  illustration. 
We  often  see  that  Christianity  cannot  accord  with  the  system, 
but  the  conviction  does  not  often  operate  on  our  minds.  In  one 
of  the  speeches  of  Bishop  Watson  in  the  House  of  Lords,  there 
occur  these  words : — "  Would  to  God,  my  lords,  that  the  spirit  o^ 
the  Christian  religion  would  exert  its  influence  over  the  hearts  of 
individuals  in  their  public  capacity ;  then  would  revenge,  avarice* 
and  ambition,  which  have  fattened  the  earth  with  the  blood  of 
her  children,  be  banished  from  the  counsels  of  princes,  and  there 
would  be  no  more  war.  The  time  will  come — the  prophet  hath 
said  it,  and  I  believe  it — the  time  will  assuredly  come  when 
nation,  literally  speaking,  shall  no  longer  lift  up  hand  against 
nation.  No  man  will  rejoice,  my  lords,  more  than  I  shall,  to  see 
the  time  when  peace  shall  depend  on  an  obedience  to  the  benevo- 
lent principles  of  the  gospel."*  This  is  language  becoming  a 
Christian.  Would  it  have  been  believed  that  this  same  man 
voluntarily  and  studiously  added  almost  one-half  to  the  power  of 
gunpowder,  in  order  that  the  ball  which  before  would  kill  but  six 
men,  might  now  kill  ten  ;  and  that  he  did  this,  knowing  that  this 
purpose  was  to  spread  wider  destruction  and  bloodier  slaughter? 
Above  all,  would  it  be  believed  that  he  recorded  this  achieve- 
ment as  an  evidence  of  his  sagacity,  and  that  he  recorded  it  in 
the  book  which  contains  the  declaration  I  have  quoted  ? 

The  same  consequences  attach  to  the  influence  of  the  soldier's 
personal  character.  Whatever  that  character  be,  if  it  arise  out 
of  his  profession,  we  seldom  regard  it  with  repulsion.  We  look 

*  Life  of  Bishop  Watson. 


117 

upon  him  as  a  man  whose  honour  and  spirit  compensate  for 
"  venial  errors."  If  he  be  spirited  and  gallant,  we  ask  not  for  his 
virtue  and  care  not  for  his  profligacy.  We  look  upon  the  sailor 
as  a  brave  and  noble  fellow,  who  may  reasonably  be  allowed  in 
droll  profaneness,  and  sailorlike  debaucheries — debaucheries, 
which,  in  the  paid-off  crew  of  a  man-of-war,  seem  sometimes  to 
be  animated  by 

the  dissoluted  Spirit  that  fell, 

The  fleshliest  Incubus. 

We  are,  however,  much  diverted  by  them.  The  sailor's  cool  and 
clumsy  vices  are  very  amusing  to  us ;  and  so  that  he  amuses  us, 
we  are  indifferent  to  his  crimes.  That  some  men  should  be 
wicked,  is  bad — that  the  many  should  feel  complacency  in  wicked- 
ness is,  perhaps,  worse.  We  may  flatter  ourselves  with  dreams 
of  our  own  virtue,  but  that  virtue  is  very  questionable — those 
principles  are  very  unoperative,  which  permit  us  to  receive  plea- 
sure from  the  contemplation  of  human  depravity,  with  whatever 
"  honour  or  spirit"  that  depravity  is  connected.  Such  principles 
and  virtue  will  oppose,  at  any  rate,  little  resistance  to  temptation. 
An  abhorrence  of  wickedness  is  more  than  an  outwork  of  the 
moral  citadel.  He  that  does  not  hate  vice  has  opened  a  passage 
for  its  entrance.* 

I  do  not  think  that  those  who  feel  an  interest  in  the  virtue  and 
the  happiness  of  the  world  will  regard  the  animosity  of  party  and 
the  restlessness  of  resentment  which  are  produced  by  a  war,  as 
trifling  evils.  If  anything  be  opposite  to  Christianity,  it  is  retali- 
ation and  revenge.  In  the  obligation  to  restrain  these  disposi- 
tions, much  of  the  characteristic  placability  of  Christianity  con- 
sists. The  very  essence  and  spirit  of  our  religion  are  abhorrent 
from  resentment. — The  very  essence  and  spirit  of  war  are  pro- 
motive  of  resentment ;  and  what  then  must  be  their  mutual 
advcrseness?  That  war  excites  these  passions,  needs  not  be 

*  All  sober  men  allow  this  to  be  true  in  relation  to  the  influence  of  those  Novel* 
which  decorate  a  profligate  character  with  objects  of  attraction.  They  allow  that 
our  complacency  with  these  subjects  abates  our  hatred  of  the  accompanying 
vices.  And  the  same  also  is  true  in  relation  to  war  ,  with  the  difference,  indeed, 
which  is  likely  to  exist  between  the  influence  of  the  vices  of  fiction  and  that  of  tin 
vioes  of  real  life. 


118 

proved.  When  a  war  is  in  contemplation,  or  when  it  has  beer 
begun,  what  are  the  endeavours  of  its  promoters  ?  They  animate 
us  by  every  artifice  of  excitement  to  hatred  and  animosity. 
Pamphlets,  placards,  newspapers,  caricatures — every  agent  is  in 
requisition  to  irritate  us  into  malignity.  Nay,  dreadful  as  it  is, 
the  pulpit  resounds  with  declamations  to  stimulate  our  too  slug- 
gish resentment,  and  to  invite  us  to  blood. — And  thus  the  most 
unchristianlike  of  all  our  passions,  the  passion  which  it  is  most 
the  object  of  our  religion  to  repress,  is  excited  and  fostered. 
Christianity  cannot  be  flourishing  under  circumstances  like  these. 
The  more  effectually  we  are  animated  to  war,  the  more  nearly 
we  extinguish  the  dispositions  of  our  religion.  War  and  Christi- 
anity are  like  the  opposite  ends  of  a  balance,  of  which  one  is 
depressed  by  the  elevation  of  the  other. 

These  are  the  consequences  which  make  war  dreadful  to  a 
stare.  Slaughter  and  devastation  are  sufficiently  terrible,  but 
their  collateral  evils  are  their  greatest.  It  is  the  immoral  feeling 
that  war  diffuses — it  is  the  depravation  of  principle,  which  forms 
the  mass  of  its  mischief. 

There  is  one  mode  of  hostility  that  is  allowed  and  encouraged 
by  war,  which  appears  to  be  distinguished  by  peculiar  atrocity ; 
I  mean  privateering.  If  war  could  be  shown  to  be  necessary  or 
right,  I  think  this,  at  least,  were  indefensible.  It  were  surely 
enough  that  army  slaughtered  army,  and  that  fleet  destroyed 
fleet,  without  arming  individual  avarice  for  private  plunder,  and 
legalizing  robbery  because  it  is  not  of  our  countrymen.  Who 
are  the  victims  of  this  plunder,  and  what  are  its  effects  ?  Does 
it  produce  any  mischief  to  our  enemies  but  the  ruin  of  those  who 
perhaps  would  gladly  have  been  friends? — of  those  who  are 
made  enemies  only  by  the  will  of  their  rulers,  and  who  now  con- 
duct their  commerce  with  no  other  solicitude  about  the  war  than 
how  they  may  escape  the  rapine  which  it  sanctions  ?  Privateering 
can  scarcely  plead  even  the  merit  of  public  mischief  in  its  favour. 
An  empire  is  little  injured  by  the  wretchedness  and  starvation  of 
a  few  of  its  citizens.  The  robbery  may,  indeed,  be  carried  to 
such  extent,  and  such  multitudes  may  be  plundered,  that  the  ruin 
of  individuals  may  impart  poverty  to  a  state.  But  for  this  mis- 
chief the  privateer  can  seldom  hope :  and  what  is  that  practice, 
of  which  the  only  topic  of  defence  is  the  enormity  of  its  mischief  1 


119 

There  is  a  yet  more  dreadful  consideration : — The  privateer  is 
not  only  a  robber,  but  a  murderer.  If  he  cannot  otherwise  plun- 
der his  victim,  human  life  is  no  obstacle  to  his  rapine.  Robber^ 
is  his  object,  and  his  object  he  will  attain.  Nor  has  he  the  ordi- 
nary excuses  of  slaughter  in  his  defence.  His  government  does 
not  require  it  of  him :  he  makes  no  pretext  of  patriotism,  but 
robs  and  murders  of  his  own  choice,  and  simply  for  gain.  The 
soldier  makes  a  bad  apology  when  he  pleads  the  command  of  his 
superior,  but  the  privateer  has  no  command  to  plead ;  and  with 
no  object  but  plunder,  he  deliberately  seeks  a  set  of  ruffians  who 
are  unprincipled  enough  for  robbery  and  ferocious  enough  for 
murder,  and  sallies  with  them  upon  the  ocean,  like  tigers  upon  a 
desert,  and  like  tigers  prowling  for  prey. — To  talk  of  Christianity 
as  permitting  these  monstrous  proceedings,  implies  deplorable 
fatuity  or  more  deplorable  profaneness.  J  would,  however,  hope 
that  he  who  sends  out  a  privateer  has  not  so  little  shame  as  to 
pretend  to  conscience  or  honesty. — If  he  wrill  be  a  robber  and  a 
murderer,  let  him  at  least  not  be  a  hypocrite ;  for  it  is  hypocrisy 
for  such  men  to  pretend  to  religion  or  morality.  He  that  thus 
robs  the  subjects  of  another  country,  wants  nothing  but  impunity 
to  make  him  rob  his  neighbour :  he  has  no  restraint  from  prin- 
ciple. 

I  know  not  how  it  happens  that  men  make  pretensions  to 
Christianity  whilst  they  sanction  or  promote  such  prodigious 
wickedness.  It  is  sufficiently  certain,  that  whatever  be  their 
pretensions  to  it.  it  is  not  operative  upon  their  conduct.  Such 
men  may  talk  of  religion,  but  they  neither  possess  nor  regard  it : 
and  although  I  would  not  embrace  in  such  censure  those  who, 
without  immediate  or  remote  participation  in  the  crime,  look  upon 
it  with  secret  approbation  because  it  injures  their  "  enemies,"  I 
would  nevertheless  suggest  to  their  consideration  whether  t/ieir 
moral  principles  are  at  that  point  in  the  scale  of  purity  and  bene- 
volence which  religion  enjoins. 

We  often  hear,  during  a  war,  of  subsidies  from  one  nation  to 
another  for  the  loan  of  an  army ;  and  we  hear  of  this  without  any 
emotion,  except  perhaps  of  joy  at  the  greater  probability  of 
triumph,  or  of  anger  that  our  money  is  expended.  Yet,  surely,  if 
we  contemplate  such  a  bargain  for  a  moment,  we  shall  perceive 
that  our  first  and  greatest  emotion  ought  to  be  abhorrence. — To 


120 

borrow  ten  thousand  men  who  know  nothing  of  our  quarrel,  and 
care  nothing  for  it,  to  help  us  to  slaughter  their  fellows  !  To  pay 
for  their  help  in  guineas  to  their  sovereign !  Well  has  it  been 
exclaimed, 

War  is  a  game,  that  were  their  subjects  wise, 
Kings  would  not  play  at. 

A  king  sells  his  subjects  as  a  farmer  sells  his  cattle ;  and  sends 
them  to  destroy  a  people,  whom,  if  they  had  been  higher  bidders, 
he  would  perhaps  have  sent  them  to  defend.  That  kings  should 
do  this  may  grieve,  but  it  cannot  surprise  us :  avarice  has  been 
as  unprincipled  in  humbler  life ;  the  possible  malignity  of  indi- 
vidual wickedness  is  perhaps  without  any  limit.  But  that  a  large 
number  of  persons,  with  the  feelings  and  reason  of  men,  should 
coolly  listen  to  the  bargain  of  their  sale,  should  compute  the 
guineas  that  will  pay  for  their  blood,  and  should  then  quietly  be 
led  to  a  place  where  they  are  to  kill  people  towards  whom  they 
have  no  animosity,  is  simply  wonderful.  To  what  has  inveteracy 
of  habit  reconciled  mankind !  I  have  no  capacity  of  supposing 
a  case  of  slavery,  if  slavery  be  denied  in  this.  Men  have  been 
sold  in  another  continent,  and  England  has  been  shocked  and 
aroused  to  interference ;  yet  these  men  were  sold,  not  to  be 
slaughtered,  but  to  work :  but  of  the  purchases  and  sales  of  the 
world's  political  butchers,  England  cares  nothing  and  thinks 
nothing  ;  nay,  she  is  a  participator  in  the  bargains.  There  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  upon  other  subjects  of  horror,  similar  fami- 
liarity of  habit  would  produce  similar  effects ;  or  that  he  who 
heedlessly  contemplates  the  purchase  of  an  army,  wants  nothing 
but  this  familiarity  to  make  him  heedlessly  look  on  at  the  com- 
mission of  parricide.  If  we  could  for  one  moment  emancipate 
ourselves  from  this  power  of  habit,  how  would  it  change  the 
scene  that  is  before  us  !  Little  would  remain  to  war  of  splendour 
or  glory,  but  we  should  be  left  with  one  wide  waste  of  iniquity 
and  wretchedness. 

It  is  the  custom,  during  the  continuance  of  a  war,  to  offer 
public  prayers  for  the  success  of  our  arms ;  and  our  enemies  pray 
also  for  the  success  of  theirs.  I  will  acknowledge  that  this 
practice  appears  to  me  to  be  eminently  shocking  and  profane, 
Tb  idea  of  two  communities  of  Christians,  sepaiated  perhaps  by 


121 

a  creek,  at  the  same  moment  begging  their  common  Father  to 
assist  them  in  reciprocal  destruction,  is  an  idea  of  horror  to  which 
I  know  no  parallel.  Ijord,  assist  us  to  slaughter  our  enemies. 
This  is  our  petition. — "Father,  forgive  them;  they  know  not 
what  they  do."  This  is  the  petition  of  Christ. 

It  is  certain  that  of  two  contending  communities,  both  cannot 
be  in  the  right.  Yet  both  appeal  to  Heaven  to  avouch  the  justice 
of  their  cause,  and  both  mingle  with  their  petitions  for  the 
increase,  perhaps,  of  Christian  dispositions,  importunities  to  the 
God  of  mercy  to  assist  them  in  the  destruction  of  one  another. 
Taking  into  account  the  ferocity  of  the  request — the  solemnity  of 
its  circumstances — the  falsehood  of  its  representations — the  fact 
that  both  parties  are  Christians,  and  that  their  importunities  are 
simultaneous  to  their  common  Lord,  I  do  not  think  that  the  world 
exhibits  another  example  of  such  irreverent  and  shocking  iniquity. 
Surely  it  were  enough  that  we  slaughter  one  another  alone  in 
our  pigmy  quarrels,  without  soliciting  the  Father  of  the  universe 
to  be  concerned  in  them :  surely  it  were  enough  that  each  reviles 
the  other  with  the  iniquity  of  his  cause,  without  each  assuring 
Heaven  that  he  only  is  in  the  right — an  assurance  that  is  false, 
probably  in  both,  and  certainly  in  one. 

To  attempt  to  pursue  the  consequences  of  war  through  all  her 
ramifications  of  evil  were,  however,  both  endless  and  vain.  It  is 
a  moral  gangrene  which  diffuses  its  humours  through  the  whole 
political  and  social  system.  To  expose  its  mischief  is  to  exhibit 
all  evil ;  for  there  is  no  evil  which  it  does  not  occasion,  and  it 
has  much  that  is  peculiar  to  itself. 

That,  together  with  its  multiplied  evils,  war  produces  some 
good,  I  have  no  wish  to  deny.  I  know  that  it  sometimes  elicits 
valuable  qualities  which  had  otherwise  been  concealed,  and  that 
it  often  produces  collateral  and  adventitious,  and  sometimes  im- 
mediate advantages.  If  all  this  could  be  denied,  it  would  be 
needless  to  deny  it,  for  it  is  of  no  consequence  to  the  question 
whether  it  be  proved.  That  any  wide  extended  system  should 
not  produce  some  benefits,  can  never  happen.  In  such  a  system, 
it  were  an  unheard-of  purity  of  evil,  which  was  evil  without  any 
mixture  of  good.  But,  to  compare  the  ascertained  advantages  of 
war,  with  its  ascertained  mischiefs,  or  with  the  ascertained  ad- 
vantages  of  a  system  of  peace,  and  to  maintain  a  question  as  to 

16 


122 

the  preponderance  of  good,  implies  not  ignorance,  but  guilt — not 
incapacity  of  determination,  but  voluntary  falsehood. 

But  I  rejoice  in  the  conviction  that  the  .hour  is  approaching, 
when  Christians  shall  cease  to  be  the  murderers  of  one  another. 
Christian  light  is  certainly  spreading,  and  there  is  scarcely  a 
country  in  Europe,  in  which  the  arguments  for  unconditional 
peace  have  not  recently  produced  conviction.  This  conviction 
is  extending  in  our  own  country,  in  such  a  degree,  and  upon 
such  minds,  that  it  makes  the  charge  of  enthusiasm  or  folly, 
vain  and  idle.  The  friends  of  peace,  if  we  choose  to  despise 
their  opinions,  cannot  themselves  be  despised ;  and  every  year  is 
adding  to  their  number,  and  to  the  sum  of  their  learning  and 
their  intellect. 


It  will  perhaps  be  asked,  what  then  are  the  duties  of  a  subject 
who  believes  that  all  war  is  incompatible  with  his  religion,  but 
whose  governors  engage  in  a  war  and  demand  his  service? 
We  answer  explicitly,  It  is  his  duty,  mildly  and  temperately,  yet 
firmly,  to  refuse  to  serve. — There  are  some  persons,  who,  without 
any  determinate  process  of  reasoning,  appear  to  conclude  that 
responsibility  for  national  measures  attaches  solely  to  those  who 
direct  them ;  that  it  is  the  business  of  governments  to  consider 
what  is  good  for  the  community,  and  that,  in  these  cases,  the 
duty  of  the  subject  is  merged  in  the  will  of  the  sovereign 
Considerations  like  these  are,  I  believe,  often  voluntarily  per- 
mitted to  become  opiates  of  the  conscience.  I  have  no  part,  it  is 
said,  in  the  counsels  of  the  government,  and  am  not  therefore  respon- 
sible for  its  crimes.  We  are,  indeed,  not  responsible  for  the 
crimes  of  our  rulers,  but  we  are  responsible  for  our  own ;  and 
the  crimes  of  our  rulers  are  our  own  ;  if  whilst  we  believe  them 
to  be  crimes,  we  promote  them  by  our  co-operation.  "  It  is  at  ali 
times,"  says  Gisborne,  "  the  duty  of  an  Englishman  steadfastly 
to  decline  obeying  any  orders  of  his  superiors,  which  his  con- 
science should  tell  him,  were  in  any  degree  impious  or  unjust."* 
The  apostles,  who  instructed  their  converts  to  be  subject  to  e\'ery 

*  Duties  of  Men  in  Society. 


123 

ardinance  of  man  for  conscience'  sake,  and  to  submit  themselves 
to  those  who  were  in  authority,  and  who  taught  them,  that 
whoever  resisted  the  power,  resisted  the  ordinance  of  God?  made, 
one  necessary  and  uniform  provision — that  the  magistrate  did  not 
command  them  to  do  what  God  had  commanded  them  to  forbear. 
With  the  regulations  which  the  government  of  a  country  thought 
tit  to  establish,  the  apostles  complied,  whatever,  they  might  think 
of  their  wisdom  or  expediency,  provided,  and  only  provided,  they 
did  not,  by  this  compliance,  abandon  their  allegiance  to  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  world.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  observe  in  how 
many  cases  they  refused  to  obey  the  commands  of  the  governments 
under  which  they  were  placed,  or  how  openly  they  maintained 
the  duty  of  refusal,  whenever  these  commands  interfered  with 
their  higher  obligations.  It  is  narrated  very  early  in  "the  Acts," 
that  one  of  their  number  was  imprisoned  for  preaching,  that  he 
was  commanded  to  preach  no  more,  and  was  then  released. 
Soon  afterwards  all  the  apostles  were  imprisoned.  "  Did  we  not 
straitly  command  you,"  said  the  rulers,  "  that  ye  should  not  teach 
in  this  name  V  The  answer  which  they  made  is  in  point : — "  We 
ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  men."*  And  this  system  they 
continued  to  pursue.  If  Caesar  had  ordered  one  of  the  apostles 
to  be  enrolled  in  his  legions,  does  any  one  believe  that  he  would 
have  served  1 

But  those  who  suppose  that  obedience  in  all  things  is  required, 
or  that  responsibility  in  political  affairs  is  transferred  from  the 
subject  to  the  sovereign,  reduce  themselves  to  a  great  dilemma. 
It  is  to  say  that  we  must  resign  our  conduct  and  our  con- 
sciences to  the  will  of  others,  and  act  wickedly  or  well,  as 
their  good  or  evil  may  preponderate,  without  merit  for  virtue, 
or  responsibility  for  crime.  If  the  government  direct  you  to 
fire  your  neighbour's  property,  or  to  throw  him  over  a  preci- 
pice, will  you  obey  1  If  you  will  not,  there  is  an  end  of  the  argu- 
ment, for  if  you  may  reject  its  authority  in  one  instance,  where 
is  the  limit  to  rejection?  There  is  no  rational  limit  but  that 
which  is  assigned  by  Christianity,  and  that  is  both  rational  and 
practicable.  If  any  one  should  ask  the  meaning  of  the  words, 
*  Whoso  resisteth  the  power  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God''— 

*  Acts  vi.  28. 


124 

we  answer,  that  it  refers  to  active  resistance  ;  passive  resistance, 
or  non-compliance,  the  apostles  themselves  practised.  On  this 
point  we  should  be  distinctly  understood.  We  are  not  so  incon- 
sistent as  to  recommend  a  civil  war,  in  order  to  avoid  a  foreign 
one.  Refusal  to  obey  is  the  final  duty  of  Christians. 

We  think,  then,  that  it  is  the  business  of  every  man,  who  be- 
lieves that  war  is*  inconsistent  with  our  religion,  respectfully,  but 
steadfastly,  to  refuse  to  engage  in  it.  Let  such  as  these  remem- 
ber that  an  honorable  and  an  awful  duty  is  laid  upon  them.  It 
is  upon  their  fidelity,  so  far  as  human  agency  is  concerned,  that 
the  cause  of  peace  is  suspended.  Let  them  then  be  willing  to 
avow  their  opinions  and  to  defend  them.  Neither  let  them  be 
contented  with  words,  if  more  than  words,  if  suffering  also  is  re- 
quired. It  is  only  by  the  unyielding  perseverance  of  good  that  cor- 
ruption can  be  extirpated.  If  you  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  has 
prohibited  slaughter,  let  not  the  opinion  or  the  commands  of  a 
world  induce  you  to  join  in  it.  By  this  "  steady  and  determinate 
pursuit  of  virtue,"  the  benediction  which  attaches  to  those  who 
hear  the  sayings  of  God  and  do  them,  will  rest  upon  you,  and  the 
time  will  come  when  even  the  world  will  honour  you,  as  contri- 
butors to  the  work  of  human  reformation. 


TM   Mr*. 


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